Health: Finding Symptoms Online IMPROVES Ability to Diagnose Without Increasing Anxiety

Searching the internet for symptoms can actually slightly improve your ability to diagnose a disease based on its symptoms without increasing anxiety, one study found.

US researchers tested the ability of 5,000 volunteers to diagnose a disease, based on a given list of symptoms, before and after consulting the Web.

The results go against the advice commonly given to avoid consulting “Dr Google” before visiting a GP clinic.

Doctors are concerned that searching for symptoms online may work to increase people’s anxiety levels, a phenomenon known as “cyberchondria.”

Although the new findings suggest that may not be the case, the team warned that the study did not look at self-diagnosis, in which people may react differently.

Searching the internet for symptoms may actually slightly improve your ability to diagnose disease based on its symptoms without increasing anxiety, study found (stock image)

“ I have patients all the time where the only reason they come to my office is that they have searched for something on Google and the internet said they have cancer, ” the author said and clinician David Levine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

‘I asked myself, “Are these all patients? How many cyberchondria does the internet create?”

To investigate, Dr. Levine and his colleagues recruited 5,000 people and asked them to imagine that a loved one was experiencing a given set of symptoms.

The cases chosen by the team ranged from mild to severe, but all were common ailments including heart attacks, strokes and viral infections.

Each participant was asked to provide a diagnosis based on the information provided, both before and after being allowed to search the internet for symptoms.

They were also instructed to select a level of triage, ranging from “letting the condition get better on its own” to “calling emergency services”.

Finally, each participant was asked to record their individual anxiety level.

“ I have patients all the time whose only reason they come to my office is that they have searched for something on Google and the internet said they have cancer, ” the author said and clinician David Levine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Researchers found that people were slightly better at correctly diagnosing illnesses after searching the Internet for the corresponding symptoms.

However, the research did not appear to result in a change in participants’ anxiety levels, nor in their ability to correctly select a triage level.

“Our work suggests that it’s probably okay to tell our patients to ‘Google it,’ Levine said.

“ It’s starting to form the basis of the evidence that there isn’t much wrong with it and, in fact, there can be some good. ”

The researchers cautioned, however, that the study is limited by participants pretending to diagnose a loved one, rather than themselves.

It remains to be seen whether people would behave like them when they experience the symptoms themselves and attempt to self-diagnose.

After their initial study is complete, Dr Levine and his colleagues plan to move on to studying the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to use the internet to accurately diagnose patients based on their symptoms.

“This next study uses a generalized AI algorithm, trained on all open source text on the Internet such as Reddit and Twitter, and then uses it to respond when prompted,” Dr. Levine explained.

“Can AI complement the way people use the internet? Can it complement the way doctors use the Internet? This is what we want to investigate. ”

The full results of the study were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.