Readability of English, German, and Russian Disease-Related Wikipedia Pages: Automated Computational Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Wikipedia is a popular encyclopedia for health- and disease-related information in which patients seek advice and guidance on the web. Yet, Wikipedia articles can be unsuitable as patient education materials, as investigated in previous studies that analyzed specific diseases or medical topics with a comparatively small sample size. Currently, no data are available on the average readability levels of all disease-related Wikipedia pages for the different localizations of this particular encyclopedia.

Objective

This study aimed to analyze disease-related Wikipedia pages written in English, German, and Russian using well-established readability metrics for each language.

Methods

Wikipedia database snapshots and Wikidata metadata were chosen as resources for d

SUBMITTER: Gordejeva J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9152717 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature