Volume 29, Issue 162, August 2025

Internet as a source of knowledge about headaches in children

Wiktoria Kubziakowska¹, Julia Stelmach^1♦, Jakub Rychlik¹, Patrycja Podlejska¹, Justyna Abramowicz¹, Dawid Zakrzewski¹, Marta Zawadzka¹, Maria Mazurkiewicz- Bełdzińska¹

¹Department of Developmental Neurology, Medical University of Gdansk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland

^♦Corresponding author
Julia Stelmach, Department of Developmental Neurology, Medical University of Gdansk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland

ABSTRACT

The internet is one of the primary sources of knowledge people rely on for information regarding their health. With a vast number of articles available on various diseases and symptoms, this study aimed to assess the credibility, reliability, and consistency of current medical knowledge of information found on the most accessible websites, including social media, related to headaches in children. We analyzed the first 100 links that appeared when the phrase "headaches in children" was entered into the Google search engine. After applying specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, 89 texts were qualified for evaluation. The analysis was conducted using the DISCERN scale along with a set of author-developed questions to assess the quality of the content. Out of the 89 analyzed sources, 49.3% were found to have a low level of credibility. The average DISCERN score across all materials was 40.93 points. Only six sources were classified as excellent quality. This study highlights the poor quality of online information concerning headaches in children. Most sources are unreliable and lack key clinical content. Healthcare professionals should encourage patients to be cautious when using unverified online sources, and our results suggest that internet sources require significant improvements in accuracy and depth.

Keywords: headache in children, social media, Internet, treatment of headache

Medical Science, 2025, 29, e145ms3596

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi.v29i162.e145ms3596

Published: 27 August 2025