Comprehensive Evaluation of Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Websites

Pagan-Rosado, Robert; Hurdle, Mark Friedrich; Jimenez, Claudia; Cheville, Andrea; Rosario-Concepcion, Raul A

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the comprehensiveness of primary care sports medicine fellowship websites and identify potential areas of improvement. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of fellowship program websites using quantitative and descriptive statistics. SETTING: Internet. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 192 primary care sports medicine fellowship websites listed on the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) website. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES: Program Specialty and Program Region. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The presence or absence of 19 predetermined criteria on primary care sports medicine fellowship websites. RESULTS: The average number of criteria that was included on each website was 9.8 (SD 3.5) (51.6%) of the possible 19. Programs had as few as 2 of the 19 (10.5%) criteria included on their website, and others had as many as 17 of the 19 (89.4%) criteria. Of the 192 primary care sports medicine fellowships, only 5 (2.6%) addressed at least 80% of the 19 different criteria. No primary care sports medicine fellowship website included all 19 criteria. CONCLUSIONS: Most primary care sports medicine fellowship websites do not offer comprehensive information about their programs for prospective applicants.