Accessing disease information via smartphones: A senile macular degeneration investigation in over-65-year-old patients

Aim: To investigate how frequently over-65-year-old senile macular degeneration (SMD) patients use smartphones and the Internet for disease information, as well as to evaluate website readability and information quality.
Material and methods: There were 400 SMD patients who were followed up on at a retina clinic. SMD was defined as the presence of >5 hard drusen or >1 125 μm soft drusen in the macula, and scar or subretinal fluid compatible with SMD. Face-to-face interviews were used to gather demographic data, including age, gender, educational level, smartphone use, and whether patients researched SMD in Google, YouTube, or other websites. Two experienced ophthalmologists blindly evaluated 32 Google websites and 37 YouTube videos using Ateşman and Bezirci-Yilmaz readability formulas, as well as JAMA and DISCERN indexes.
Results: The average age of the patients was 75.0±6.6 years, and 37.3% owned a smartphone. Legally blind patients (40.5%) used smartphones less frequently for Internet searches (p<0.001). As educational level increased, patients became more active in searching diseases electronically. The JAMA score in texts was 0.8±0.4, while it was 0.7±0.6 in videos (p=0.654). The DISCERN score was 35.1±6.2 and 33.2±10.3 in texts and videos, respectively (p=0.347). Smartphone use decreased with age (OR=0.896, 95% CI: 0.859-0.934), but not with legal blindness (OR=0.756, 95% CI: 0.458-1.245).
Conclusion: Improved quality and reliability of internet websites and video information, more emphasis on informative audio recordings and videos for people with low vision, and easily readable Internet websites could all have a positive impact on patients' adherence to treatment.