The social media effect: the impact of fake news on women affected by endometriosis. A prospective observational study

Alessandro Arena, Arena A, Degli Esposti E, Eugenia Degli Esposti, Benedetta Orsini, Verrelli L, Ludovica Verrelli, Giulia Rodondi, Rodondi G, Jacopo Lenzi, Paolo Casadio, Renato Seracchioli
European journal of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology · 2022 · vol. 274 , pp. 101–105 · doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2022.05.020 · PMID:35640437 · W4281257683
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 11 in-corpus citations
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study prospectively observed how fake news on social media impacted women diagnosed with endometriosis.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Our purpose was to evaluate women's awareness of endometriosis and their ability to identify fake news about endometriosis on the internet. The second outcome was to identify those characteristics which make women more likely to believe in fake news. STUDY DESIGN: This prospective observational study was conducted at our academic outpatient clinic for endometriosis and pelvic pain. We enrolled 172 patients referred to our Center due to the suspicion of endometriosis, who were asked to fill in a two-part questionnaire. The first part included socio-demographic information, the evaluation of anxiety status (STAI Y6 and GAD-7), and endometriosis related-symptoms (EHP-5). The second part of the questionnaire was about fake news: women were asked whether they had encountered six different statings when searching the Internet, and to judge the likelihood that those 6 topics were true. RESULTS: 76.3% of patients found fake news about endometriosis online. Higher STAI-Y6 scores were associated with a higher risk of finding fake news about endometriosis (OR 1.05, 95% C.I. 1.01-1.09, p = 0.013). More than half of patients who came across the news regarding the impossibility of obtaining pregnancy for women affected by endometriosis considered this news moderately or highly credible, 6% of them even considered it completely plausible. No demographic characteristics were associated with thehigher perceived plausibility of the fake news. CONCLUSION: Gynecologists should be aware that some hot topics concerning endometriosis are widely talked about on the web and that many statements found online have no scientific base. Through this knowledge physicians could more easily engage patients by acquiring important insight into their main concerns and doubts, and could provide women with reliable and correct information regarding their disease, dissipating doubts and misconceptions.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (20)

Cited by (14)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-07-29T06:27:48.050232+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-06-26T06:14:19.508207+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK