Evaluation of Gynecologists’ Websites in Terms of Ethical Principles

Abstract

Objective: Medical doctors frequently use their webpages to communicate with patients. The aim of this study is to eveluate the websites of Turkish gynecologists according to the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode) principles. Methods: The population of the study consists of 5739 gynecologists in Turkey. However, using a convenience sampling method, 608 gynecologists with websites were selected. The selected web pages of gynecologists were analyzed based on the HONcode criteria. In the study, the websites of obstetricians and gynecologists were evaluated according to the criteria of the HONcode principles between February 15, 2021 and May 15, 2021, and the obtained data were analyzed using a statistical software package program. Results: The findings show that 64% of gynecologists' websites did not adhere to HONcode principles. In addition, it was determined that among social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, obstetricians use Instagram the most (72%) and Twitter the least (19.2%). Further this research shows that 80.9% of gynecologists do not have their web pages in other languages. Furthermore 94.9% of gynecologists have visual contents like photographs and videos on their web pages and 8.1% have visual contents other than those belonging to their patients. Conclusion: The eight HONcode principles, the most frequently violated was found financial disclosure” while “confidentiality” was the least violated. In addition, it was determined that there was no ethical violation regarding the "advertising policy" principle. Ethical principles should be developed for gynecologists' websites.