Scope, Completeness, and Accuracy of Drug Information in Wikipedia

Background: With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, user-edited online resources such as Wikipedia are increasingly tapped for information. However, there is little research on the quality of health information found in Wikipedia. Objective: To compare the scope, completeness, and accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia with that of a free, online, traditionally edited database (Medscape Drug Reference [MDR]). Methods: Wikipedia and MDR were assessed on 8 categories of drug information. Questions were constructed and answers were verified with authoritative resources, Wikipedia and MDR were evaluated according to scope (breadth of coverage) and completeness. Accuracy was tracked by factual errors and errors of omission. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the components. Fisher's exact test was used to compare scope and paired Student's Most was used to compare current results in Wikipedia with entries 90 days prior to the current access. Results: Wikipedia was able to answer significantly fewer drug information questions (40.0%) compared with MDR (82.5%; p