Most Turkish-language websites offering patient information about premature ejaculation are difficult to read, of modest quality, and rarely transparent about their sources, according to a cross-sectional study published in BMC Urology. The findings, released as an open-access peer-reviewed article on 29 October 2026, suggest that people searching online in Turkish for help with this stigmatized condition are likely to encounter content that is both academically dense and weakly sourced.
The researchers searched Google.com.tr between 30 June and 1 July 2026 using two Turkish terms for premature ejaculation. They screened the first five result pages for each term and included 65 eligible websites in the analysis. Readability was assessed with two Turkish-validated formulas, the Atesman and Bezirci-Yilmaz scales. Information quality was scored with the DISCERN instrument, and transparency was measured against the JAMA benchmark criteria, with each of those two instruments scored independently by two raters. Inter-rater agreement was excellent, with intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.96 and 1.00. Physician-hospital differences and readability-quality correlations were examined using non-parametric tests.
The readability results were striking. The median Atesman score was 47.23, with an interquartile range of 42.62 to 51.57, and 69.2 percent of the sites were rated as difficult or very difficult to read. On the Bezirci-Yilmaz scale, the websites corresponded to an academic readability level, and none of the 65 sites qualified as easy. In other words, the typical page a Turkish speaker would find when searching about premature ejaculation demanded a reading level closer to scholarly literature than to everyday patient education.
Information quality was also limited. The median DISCERN score was 39.00, with an interquartile range of 33.00 to 44.00. Nearly half of the websites, 47.7 percent, fell into the poor or very poor categories, while only 12.3 percent were rated good or excellent. Transparency was weaker still: the median JAMA score was 2.00, with an interquartile range of 1.50 to 2.00. Attribution was met by just 21.5 percent of sites and disclosure by 10.8 percent, and only 1.5 percent satisfied all four JAMA criteria.
The study also tested whether the type of website mattered. Physician and hospital websites showed no statistically significant difference on any metric, meaning that content produced by or for medical professionals was not measurably better on readability, quality, or transparency in this sample. The analysis likewise found no significant association between readability and information quality, with all reported p-values above 0.05, so easier-to-read pages were not necessarily of lower or higher quality.
The authors conclude that Turkish-language premature ejaculation websites were generally difficult to read, with an academic-level readability, and showed limited information quality and transparency. They identify improving readability, source attribution, and disclosure as an actionable priority for clinicians, institutions, and content developers who want to make online patient information more useful. The study is a snapshot of search results at a single point in time in one language and one search engine, so it describes the state of the web pages sampled rather than measuring how patients use or are affected by them.
Subject of Research: Quality and readability of Turkish-language online patient information about premature ejaculation
Article Title: Quality and readability of Turkish online patient information websites on premature ejaculation: a cross-sectional study
Article References: Bayraktar, A. M., İşler, B., Yıldırım, M. M., & Küçüktopçu, O. (2026). Quality and readability of Turkish online patient information websites on premature ejaculation: a cross-sectional study. BMC Urology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12894-026-02456-z
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s12894-026-02456-z
Keywords: premature ejaculation, online health information, readability, DISCERN, JAMA benchmarks, Turkish-language websites, patient education, health literacy, cross-sectional study, BMC Urology, transparency, website quality
News Source: Ophelia Keating. (October 29, 2026). Turkish online information on premature ejaculation is hard to read and often unreliable, study finds. Scienmag.
