Background: The global prevalence of diabetes mellitus is projected to reach approximately 700 million by the year 2045. Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) frequently seek out complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) online. This study assessed the quality of publicly accessible websites providing consumer health information at the intersection of T2DM and CAM.

Methods: An online search engine (Google) was searched to identify pertinent websites containing information specific to CAM for T2DM patients, and the relevant websites were then screened based on eligibility criteria. Eligible websites were then assessed for the quality of information with the DISCERN instrument, a 16-item standardized scoring system.

Results: Across the 480 webpages identified, 94 unique webpages remained following deduplication, and 37 eligible webpages were collapsed to 30 singular unique websites that were assessed using the DISCERN instrument. The mean overall quality rating across all 30 assessed websites was 3.55 (SD = 0.86), and the mean overall DISCERN score was 52.40 (SD = 12.11) across all assessed websites. Eighty percent of websites presented a wide range of CAM treatment options with the associated benefits/risks of each treatment, but in 56.7% of the websites, the sources used to collect information for the websites were unreliable. 

Conclusion: This study identified, assessed, and presented findings on the quality of online CAM information for T2DM. Although there were several high scoring websites, there was variability across most of the individual DISCERN items in the assessed websites. This study also identified a need for future online websites to focus on presenting reliable and higher quality information regarding CAM treatment options for T2DM patients, particularly through using clinical practice guidelines and peer-reviewed scientific literature in the process of developing these websites.

Keywords: quality of information; type 2 diabetes mellitus; complementary and alternative medicine