(Poster 176) Assessing the Quality of Online Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Resources

Objectives: While pelvic floor physical therapy (PFPT) is a treatment option for many pelvic floor disorders, financial considerations and limited access to experienced physical therapists (PT) are barriers to utilization. In parallel, patients increasingly utilize online resources to engage with medical care. Navigating online resources holds increasing importance. Our objective was to compare the quality of commercially available, online PFPT resources that did and did not offer individual meetings with providers.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on February 25, 2025. Google©, Yahoo©, Bing©, Yippy©, and Dogpile© were queried with terms chosen after consultation with a librarian: “online pelvic floor physical therapy,” “urinary incontinence online pelvic floor physical therapy,” and “pelvic organ prolapse online pelvic floor physical therapy.” Each search was performed in a private browser. The first 30 results from each search engine were screened. We included websites with completely virtual programs, and excluded those that were completely in-person, hybrid in-person/virtual, or did not contain PFPT regimens. Websites were evaluated using a modified validated quality assessment tool that incorporates the Health on the Net Code, DISCERN tool, and Journal of the American Medical Association benchmark. The tool includes accountability, interactivity, structure/organization, and content subsections that combine to create an overall quality score. Two authors independently scored websites and met to resolve disagreements.

Results: Twenty-one websites met inclusion criteria. All had an associated cost. Most (71.4%) did not accept insurance. Most treated pelvic organ prolapse (61.9%) and urinary incontinence (76.2%), but only 19% treated painful bladder syndrome; 90.5% of websites identified the credentials of affiliated providers (mainly PT with doctorate degrees (DPT)). Few programs were associated with physicians (14.3%). Individualized meetings with providers were available for 57.1% of programs. The websites that allowed individual meetings were more likely to accept insurance than those that did not (Table 1). The provider degree, specific conditions treated, and social media presence did not differ between groups. Median total quality assessment and the accountability subsection scores were higher for programs that allowed individual meetings (22.5 vs 16, p=0.002 and 10.5 vs 7, p=0.02, respectively) (Table 2). Median website reading level was 10th grade for both cohorts.

Conclusions: Most completely virtual PFPT programs accessible on popular search engines did not accept insurance. Programs that allowed individual provider meetings were more likely to accept insurance and had higher accountability subsection and overall quality scores than those that did not. While virtual PFPT can improve access to care, more studies are needed to ensure that virtual programs provide the same standard of care as in-person PFPT.

Table legends
Abbreviations: Women’s Certified Specialist (WCS), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG)
n(%) or median(IQR)
Fisher's exact and Kruskal-Wallis tests used