Accuracy and Completeness of Drug Information in Wikipedia: A Comparison with Standard Textbooks of Pharmacology Jona Kra ¨ enbring 1. , Tika Monzon Penza 1. , Joanna Gutmann 1 , Susanne Muehlich 2 , Oliver Zolk 3 , Leszek Wojnowski 4 , Renke Maas 5 , Stefan Engelhardt 1 , Antonio Sarikas 1 * 1 Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Technische Universita ¨t Mu ¨ nchen, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, 2 Walther-Straub-Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, 3 Institute of Pharmacology of Natural Products & Clinical Pharmacology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Baden- Wu ¨ rttemberg, Germany, 4 Department of Pharmacology, University Medical Centre of Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, 5 Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nu ¨ rnberg, Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany Abstract The online resource Wikipedia is increasingly used by students for knowledge acquisition and learning. However, the lack of a formal editorial review and the heterogeneous expertise of contributors often results in skepticism by educators whether Wikipedia should be recommended to students as an information source. In this study we systematically analyzed the accuracy and completeness of drug information in the German and English language versions of Wikipedia in comparison to standard textbooks of pharmacology. In addition, references, revision history and readability were evaluated. Analysis of readability was performed using the Amstad readability index and the Erste Wiener Sachtextformel. The data on indication, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, adverse effects and contraindications for 100 curricular drugs were retrieved from standard German textbooks of general pharmacology and compared with the corresponding articles in the German language version of Wikipedia. Quantitative analysis revealed that accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia was 99.7%60.2% when compared to the textbook data. The overall completeness of drug information in Wikipedia was 83.861.5% (p,0.001). Completeness varied in-between categories, and was lowest in the category ‘‘pharmacokinetics’’ (68.0%64.2%; p,0.001) and highest in the category ‘‘indication’’ (91.3%62.0%) when compared to the textbook data overlap. Similar results were obtained for the English language version of Wikipedia. Of the drug information missing in Wikipedia, 62.5% was rated as didactically non-relevant in a qualitative re-evaluation study. Drug articles in Wikipedia had an average of 14.661.6 references and 262.8637.4 edits performed by 142.7617.6 editors. Both Wikipedia and textbooks samples had comparable, low readability. Our study suggests that Wikipedia is an accurate and comprehensive source of drug-related information for undergraduate medical education. Citation: Kra ¨enbring J, Monzon Penza T, Gutmann J, Muehlich S, Zolk O, et al. (2014) Accuracy and Completeness of Drug Information in Wikipedia: A Comparison with Standard Textbooks of Pharmacology. PLoS ONE 9(9): e106930. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0106930 Editor: Christian Lovis, University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland Received April 23, 2014; Accepted August 3, 2014; Published September 24, 2014 Copyright: ß 2014 Kra ¨enbring et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This work was supported by a teaching fund (to A.S.) of Technische Universita ¨t Mu ¨ nchen (http://www.tum.de/en). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * Email: sarikas@ipt.med.tum.de . These authors contributed equally to this work. Introduction The omnipresence of the internet has an increasing impact on higher education and on the way students access information for learning. The current generation of undergraduate students grew up in an environment in which the internet and computer-based technologies have become an integral part of life. This cohort, often referred to as ‘‘Net Generation’’ or ‘‘Digital Natives’’ is technological savvy and familiar with the world wide web as a communication platform and source of information [1]. In addition, studies have suggested differences in learning behavior and learning preferences of ‘‘Digital Natives’’ in comparison to preceding student generations. For instance, Oblinger and colleagues proposed that today’s students are more comfortable with multimedia learning environments, prefer to be actively engaged rather than being passive consumers of information and favor immediate responses and topic-related discussions with their peers and educators, both in person and online [2]. In parallel, the world wide web has advanced from a network of static web sites to the more user-centered ‘‘Web 2.0’’ that supports active participation, dynamic interaction and collaborative approaches [3]. One key element of the ‘‘Web 2.0’’ are wikis (a term originating from the Hawaiian word for ‘‘quick’’) which are web applications that allow users to collaboratively create, edit and share content. Wikis have little implicit structure and thus allow content to emerge according to the needs of the users. The most frequented wiki of the internet is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). The English language version of PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 September 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 9 | e106930