Population interest in and adequacy of the information on the safety of antineoplastic agents in the Spanish edition of Wikipedia

TL;DR

The study found that while the use of cancer drugs increased in Spain, interest in their safety information on Wikipedia decreased, and the pages lacked adequate safety details.

Contribution

The study uniquely examines the correlation between drug usage trends and Wikipedia page visits, highlighting gaps in safety information for antineoplastic agents.

Findings

The use of nine antineoplastic agents increased over time, but Wikipedia page visits decreased.

Most Wikipedia pages lacked comprehensive medical-pharmaceutical and safety measure information.

Only 22-44% of pages mentioned effects on fertility or pregnancy.

Abstract

To analyse the trend in use of the main antineoplastic agents (ANP) in Spain, to determine the association of this trend with the number of visits to the related pages in the Spanish edition of Wikipedia and to verify the existence of information aimed at reducing the associated risks of exposure to these drugs.

This study had an ecological, descriptive cross-sectional design. The ANP for which more than 100,000 units were used per year in the Spanish Health System were included in the analyses. The trend in the use of these ANP and the number of visits to the pages for these ANP in Wikipedia were analysed using a regression model, and the correlation of these variables was evaluated. Fulfilment of the criteria related to medical-pharmaceutical information (MPI) and safety measure information (SMI) was determined.

An increasing trend in the use of ANP was observed for the 9 ANP included in this study: paclitaxel, fluorouracil, azacitidine, oxaliplatin, rituximab, carboplatin, doxorubicin, etoposide, cyclophosphamide, and fluorouracil, which were the most commonly used ANP in the study period. Visits to the Wikipedia pages for the 9 ANP showed a decreasing trend, with an inverse relationship between use and visits to the related Wikipedia pages. Regarding MPI criteria, only the indication/use was included in all ANP pages, and no more than 30% of the remaining criteria were met, with the exception of rituximab, for which 50% of the remaining criteria were met. The SMI criteria were not fulfilled by the ANP pages; effects on fertility were included in 2 (22%) ANP pages and effects on pregnancy were included in 4 (44%) ANP pages. A molecular identifier appeared in 7 of the ANP pages.

The consumption of ANP increased, whereas the population interest in visiting related Wikipedia pages decreased. Neither MFI nor SMI were readily available in the ANP articles (pages), including information on the risk of exposure to these dangerous drugs or how to reduce this risk.

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