Online Information on Child Sleep Recommendations is Dubious

A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics reveals that not all information available on the internet regarding recommendations on infant sleep was right with just over 50 percent of the websites providing information that was in sync with the official recommendations made by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study was conducted by researchers at University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia who visited the first 100 websites ranked by search engine giant Google for 13 key phrases of infant sleep advice and ranked the information provided as accurate, inaccurate or not relevant.

The researchers found that just over 43 percent of the 1,300 websites provided accurate information, 28.1 percent provided inaccurate information while the remaining 28.4 percent of the websites were not relevant to the search phrase.

“In conclusion, we found that health- and medical-related Web sites frequently contain inaccurate information about infant sleep safety. It is important for health care providers to realize the extent to which parents may turn to the Internet for information about infant sleep safety and then act on the advice found, regardless of the reliability of the source”, the researchers wrote in their report.



Source-Medindia