Abstract
AIMS: To identify websites with information on medicines and assess, using experts, their adherence to codes of conduct and recommendations by the WHO. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study based on an ad hoc designed questionnaire (performed independently by 2 reviewers). The websites were identified by the Delphi technique (35 experts). SETTING: Websites with information on medicines. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 35 websites selected by the Delphi technique. An acceptable level of stability was achieved in the third round (interquartile variability; <0.05). MAIN MEASUREMENTS: Responsibility, transparency and honesty, authorship of the information, content review policy, privacy and data protection policies, updated information and accessibility. A descriptive analysis of compliance was carried out and the kappa coefficient was estimated to evaluate the agreement between assessors (Fleiss's Criteria). RESULTS: The National Prescribing Service Limited (NPS), PubMed, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, The Lancet, Fisterra and National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence stood out with an overall high fulfilment of the questionnaire. The updated information dimension was the lowest evaluation for the different websites. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of the web sites evaluated varied widely. Although there are several websites, which are detailed in the article, with high overall scores.