The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is now one of the world's most widely used digital sources of health information. This includes information on sexual and reproductive health such as contraception. As part of a quantitative content and quality analysis, all 25 German-language Wikipedia articles on all contraceptive methods available to date were examined. Strong differences were found in central quality dimensions such as completeness, comprehensibility and currency. The paper ends with suggestions for improving contraception-related health communication in the Wikipedia.
The study was conducted by the Media Psychology and Media Design Group at Technische Universität Ilmenau in an interdisciplinary team with backgrounds in psychology, communication science and medicine and emerged from a research project funded by the Federal Center for Health Education BZgA.
Döring, N., Lehmann, S., & Schumann-Doermer, C. (2022). Verhütung in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia: Eine Inhalts- und Qualitätsanalyse [Contraception in the German-language Wikipedia: A content and quality analysis]. Bundesgesundheitsblatt – Gesundheitsforschung – Gesundheitsschutz. Advance Online Publication. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-022-03537-8