Table 1.

Selection of studies of Wikipedia’s value to different readerships by medical subspecialty

Subspecialty (reference)	Date	Assessing for suitability for …	Conclusion
Ten most costly conditions38	2014	General readership	Most Wikipedia articles representing the 10 most costly medical conditions (…) contain many errors when checked against standard peer-reviewed sources. Caution should be used (…)
Cancer—general13	2011	Patients	Wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth as the professionally edited database
Cancer—osteoscarcoma 39	2010	Patients	(…) the quality of osteosarcoma-related information found in the English Wikipedia is good but inferior to the patient information provided by the National Cancer Institute
Cardiovascular 40	2015	Medical students	Wikipedia entries are not aimed at a medical audience and should not be used as a substitute to recommended medical resources. Course designers and students should be aware that Wikipedia entries on cardiovascular diseases lack accuracy, predominantly due to errors of omission.
Complementary medicine41	2014	General readership	Patients and health professionals should not rely solely on Wikipedia for information on these herbal supplements when treatment decisions are being made.
Gastro—hepatology42	2014	Medical students	… not good source of evidence
Mental health43	2012	General readership	The quality of information on depression and schizophrenia on Wikipedia is generally as good as, or better than, that provided by centrally controlled websites, Encyclopaedia Britannica and a psychiatry textbook.
Nephrology44	2013	Patients	Fairly reliable medical resource
Orthognathic surgery45	2012	Patients	Maximum (…) score(ings in comparison to other online sources) were Wikipedia
Pharmacology46	2017	Doctors	Wikipedia lacks the accuracy and completeness of standard clinical references and should not be a routine part of clinical decision making.
Pharmacology47	2014	Medical students	… Wikipedia is an accurate and comprehensive source of drug-related information for undergraduate medical education.
Pharmacology48	2008	Patients	Wikipedia has a more narrow scope, is less complete and has more errors of omission than the comparator database. Wikipedia may be a useful point of engagement for consumers, but is not authoritative and should only be a supplemental source of drug information.
Respiratory medicine49	2015	Medical students	Most articles had knowledge deficiencies, were not accurate and were not suitable for medical students as learning resources.