Accuracy and completeness of drug information in Wikipedia medication monographs.

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to determine the accuracy and completeness of drug information on Wikipedia and Micromedex compared with U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved U.S. product inserts.

METHODS: The top 10 brand and top 10 generic medications from the 2012 Institute for Health Informatics' list of top 200 drugs were selected for evaluation. Wikipedia medication information was evaluated and compared with Micromedex in 7 sections of drug information; the U.S. product inserts were used as the standard comparator.

RESULTS: Wikipedia demonstrated significantly lower completeness and accuracy scores compared with Micromedex (mean composite scores 18.55 vs. 38.4, respectively; P <0.01). No difference was found between the mean composite scores for brand versus generic drugs in either reference (17.8 vs. 19.3, respectively [P = 0.62], for Wikipedia; 39.2 vs. 37.6, [P = 0.06] for Micromedex). Limitations to these results include the speed with which information is edited on Wikipedia, that there was no evaluation of off-label information, and the limited number of drugs that were evaluated.

CONCLUSION: Wikipedia lacks the accuracy and completeness of standard clinical references and should not be a routine part of clinical decision making. More research should be conducted to evaluate the rationale for health care providers' use of Wikipedia.