Wikipedia often misses important drug facts

A recent study found that patients seeking drug information on the Web site Wikipedia might be dangerously ill-informed.

Kevin Clauson, PharmD, associate professor of pharmacy practice at Nova Southeastern University in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., conducted an independent search of answers to 80 drug-related questions in eight categories on Wikipedia and compared the results with what he found on a peer-reviewed site, Medscape Drug Reference search.medscape.com/drug-reference-search. Wikipedia is an open-source site that serves as an encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute content en.wikipedia.org/.

MDR provided answers to 82.5% of the questions, compared with Wikipedia's 40%. Of the answers found, however, there were four inaccurate answers on MDR and none on Wikipedia.

Researchers also found 48 errors of omission on Wikipedia and 14 for MDR.

"The silent danger of Wikipedia is that having missing information could be as dangerous as factual errors," Clauson said. His study appeared in the December Annals of Pharmacotherapy www.theannals.com/cgi/content/full/42/12/1814.

At the top of the list, Clauson said, were pain medications. One example was the entry on Arthrotec; the Wikipedia entry omitted a warning that the drug could cause miscarriages.

The findings were particularly troublesome, Clauson said, when placed in the context of another study published in the October Journal of Women's Health that looked at medication borrowing (link). That study found the group most likely to borrow medications was women of childbearing age, and the medications most likely to be borrowed were pain medications.

Jay Walsh, spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the Wikipedia site, said he was happy to hear that Clauson conducted the study. He said continual monitoring of the site can only make it better. But if Wikipedia is "replacing your physician, that's insanity. There's too much risk involved in doing something like that."

But, that said, it's still a good source for information, as long as it's used as a supporting source, he said. On that point, Clauson agreed.

Clauson said the entries on the site had no factual errors and the quality of the entries seemed to improve over the course of 90 days.

Walsh said it's important to remember who wikipedians are. Many times they are not professionals in the area of topic. Volunteer editors look at the facts available and might add information found in another journal or research study, but might not know about a warning that has not been published.

Clauson said he would recommend that physicians be receptive to the fact that their patients are going online to look for information.

"Point out limitations when appropriate, but the key is providing alternatives of where they can go," Clauson said. Two sources he recommends are WebMD and Medlineplus. Contributors on both sites are vetted and are medical professionals.