Are Internet Information Sources Helpful for Adult Crohn’s Disease Patients Regarding Nutritional Advice?

TL;DR

Many Crohn’s disease patients turn to the internet for nutritional advice, but most websites provide low-quality information that doesn’t align with medical guidelines.

Contribution

This study identifies the poor quality of online nutritional resources for Crohn’s disease patients and highlights the need for trustworthy, guideline-aligned content.

Findings

Most websites offering nutritional advice for Crohn’s disease lack quality and alignment with medical guidelines.

Crohn’s patients often prefer the internet over consulting their general practitioner for dietary recommendations.

There is a significant correlation between patients’ nutritional habits and the sources of information they use.

Abstract

Background: Adult patients suffering from Crohn’s disease (CD) are often dissatisfied with the information they receive from their physicians about nutrition and its impact on CD inflammation activity. Only a few publications are available about patients’ internet research on nutrition in CD. The study aim is to elucidate the internet information sources of adult CD patients regarding nutritional advice via a questionnaire. Methods: A questionnaire with 28 (general and specific) questions for outpatients at our tertiary center with CD was created and used for an analysis of their information sources about nutrition in CD. Four CD and/or nutritional medicine experts examined the 21 most relevant websites referring to nutritional advice for CD patients. Results: One hundred and fifty CD patients reported their Internet research behavior for nutritional advice and their dietary habits. Many CD patients prefer to consult the Internet instead of asking their general practitioner (GP) for nutritional recommendations. Most of the websites providing nutritional advice for CD patients are of very poor quality and cannot be recommended. We found significant correlations between (a) nutritional habits of CD patients, (b) their information sources and several demographic or CD-related factors. There is a lack of websites which provide high-quality, good nutritional advice to CD patients. Conclusions: The majority of the examined websites did not provide sufficient information according to the CD guidelines and nutritional medicine guidelines. A higher quality level of website content (e.g., on social media or on university/center websites) provided by experienced physicians is required to secure trustworthy and reliable nutritional information in CD.

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