NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Various researchers have assessed the quality of consumer health information on the Internet, with most of their studies reaching negative conclusions. But the researchers themselves often differ in how they measure "quality," new study findings show.

"There is a certain risk to encounter imperfect health information on the Web, but even medical experts often disagree on the question of what good health information constitutes in the first place," lead study author Dr. Gunther Eysenbach of the University of Toronto in Canada told Reuters Health.

"Thus, despite frequent research and media reports that health information on the Web does not comply to expert guidelines, there is little reason to discourage consumers to obtain health information from the Web," he added.

Eysenbach and his colleagues analyzed 79 different studies that evaluated nearly 6,000 health Web sites and 1,330 Web pages.

Seven out of every 10 studies concluded that "quality is a problem on the Internet," the investigators report in the May 22/29 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

The most frequently used criteria to determine Web site and Web page quality were accuracy, completeness, readability, design, disclosures and references provided.

In evaluating accuracy, however, some study authors reportedly compared the Internet information to criteria they established beforehand, while others compared the Internet information to previously published research. Many studies also did not clarify whether the author actually searched the literature or used his or her own knowledge to determine a document's accuracy, the researchers note.

Furthermore, although 11 studies used various formulas to determine the reading level of various Internet documents, none included testing consumers to determine whether they comprehended the information, according to Eysenbach and his team.

Similar discrepancies existed for the other criteria used to measure quality, the report indicates.

"Obviously, the closer you look, the more flaws you find in health information on the Web, but the same is true for health information in other media," Eysenbach said. He encouraged consumers to search the Internet for health information but advises them to "keep a critical eye on quality."

In a related editorial, Dr. Ahmad Risk of eHealth Research & Development in England and Carolyn Petersen of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, assert that the new study "highlights the formlessness of the Internet."

"The breadth and sophistication of content available on the Web have increased by several magnitudes since the mid-1990s, but absolute standards for health information have yet to be established," the editorialists write.

Eysenbach's research was funded in part by the European Union under the Action Plan for Safer Use of the Internet MedCERTAIN Project.

SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association 2002;287:2691-

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