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To Google or not to Google?
There is a wealth of medical advice available to parents and patients on the internet, but how accurate is it? The authors of a paper in Archives of Diseases in Childhood (2010;95:580–2) sought information on five common paediatric problems and issues. Thirty-nine per cent of the 500 sites searched gave ‘correct’ information, 11% were ‘incorrect’ and 49% failed to answer the question. Governmental sites gave uniformly accurate advice. News sites gave ‘correct’ advice in 55% of cases. No sponsored sites were encountered that gave the ‘correct’ advice. Patients frequently use the internet: perhaps healthcare workers should recommend government or NHS websites?
A lot of hot air
Two somewhat topical prospective studies with similar methodologies question the benefit of bystander ventilation in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Callers to emergency services were randomly advised by dispatchers to give standard CPR or chest compressions only. A national Swedish study of 1276 patients found no difference in survival at 30 days between groups. The authors of the larger DART (Dispatcher-Assisted Resuscitation Trial), which recruited in …