Sunday,
November 26, 2000
Internet Searches Affecting
Health Care Decisions
Half the people who have used the
Internet to get health and medical information
say this
information has improved the way they take
care of themselves and many report that online
information
has directly affected their decisions about
how to treat illness and deal with their doctors,
according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American
Life Project.
One unique part of the study involved
a survey that asked Internet users to describe
the most recent time they went online for health
information. Some 47% of the people who were
seeking health information for themselves say
the online material influenced their decisions
about treatment and care and 36% of those seeking
information on behalf of others say it influenced
their decisions.
These Internet users say the specific
impact was that the information drawn from the
Web helped them decide how to treat an illness,
prepped them to ask more questions of their doctors
or seek second opinions, and helped them decide
whether to go to the doctor or not.
These are among the key findings
about the Internet's role in Americans' medical
decisions emerges from several surveys taken
by the Pew Internet Project and released in a
report entitled "The online health care revolution:
How the Web helps Americans take better care
of themselves." The report finds that 52 million
American adults have sought health and medical
information on the Web and it calls them "health
seekers." A majority of them go online at least
once a month to get health information.
"The emergence of this group the
health seekers illustrates perhaps the most
profound and dramatic impact the Internet is
having on Americans," says Lee Rainie, director
of the Pew Internet Project. "In an era when
the facetime a patient gets with a doctor during
an average appointment has dipped below 15 minutes,
many are turning to the Web get the information
they crave so that they can make decisions about
how to care for themselves and their loved ones."
This growing reliance of Americans
on the Internet for health information raises
several important issues. Most Internet users
are worried about their online privacy, especially
when it comes to the sensitive subject of their
medical information. Fully 89% of health seekers
say they are worried that Internet companies
will collect and share data about the Web sites
they visited; 85% say they fear that insurance
companies might change their coverage after finding
out what online information they accessed; and
52% fret that their employers might learn what
kind of medical material they accessed.
These surveys also found that the
search strategies of online health seekers are
scattershot. Most report that the last time they
went hunting online for health information they
got the facts they needed. But they relied on
Internet searches without the benefit of professional
advice and often got information from Web sites
they had never heard of before they began the
search.
"This should be a wake-up call
to medical professionals: Patients are action-oriented
when they go online for health information and
they will search for it any way they can," says
Susannah Fox, Director of Research at the Pew
Internet Project and the principal author of
this study. "They would probably like help from
their doctors in pointing them to the best places
for these Internet searches and they really want
doctors to answer the questions that emerge during
that research about how to treat the sick."
The report highlights the fact
that women are much more likely than men to use
the Internet to get health and medical information.
It also points out that the online behavior of
those in excellent health differs from those
who are in less-than-excellent health and that
the result of the search often depends on whether
the health seeker is looking for information
on behalf of herself or on behalf of someone
else.
Some other key findings from the
Pew Internet Project report:
