Web users worry about accuracy of health information

Surveys find that a majority of adult Internet users search for health information online. Doctors can help by steering them toward reputable sites.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Dec. 25, 2000.

More than half of all adult Americans with access to the Internet seek health and medical information online despite strong concern that they may be using an unreliable Web site, according to a report published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

This and other findings suggest that physicians will face growing pressure to use the Internet and recommend reliable sites for their patients' benefit as well as their own, said Lee Rainie, director of the project and a co-author of "The Online Health Care Revolution."

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The report, based on three surveys conducted this year, found that 55% of adult Internet users seek health information online for themselves and others. Of these, 41% said the information helped them decide how to treat an illness, ask more questions of their doctors or seek second opinions, the report said.

"Health seekers" search for information "in a scattershot way without help from the medical establishment," Rainie said. Most of them are using broad Internet search engines and aren't familiar with the Web sites they access, and 86% of them are very concerned about getting information from an unreliable source.

"There's a high probability that the information they are getting is not the most current and most relevant for their cases," Rainie said. "The implication for doctors is that patients would really appreciate it if [doctors] had a helping hand in their search for information, like recommending specific sites ... that have high-quality information and present it in an understandable way."

Helping yourself

Some physicians share that view. Patients will seek medical information online regardless of whether physicians help them, and it's in a physician's best interest to direct patients to reliable sites, they said.

"The reality is it's going to happen and we need to embrace it," said Stephen M. Borowitz, MD, a pediatrician and professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, Va.

Dr. Borowitz follows his own advice. He has found it very helpful to recommend sites to patients and to exchange e-mail with patients seeking prescription refills, appointments and answers to questions following an office visit, he said. He adds that recommending reliable sites to patients can also help them prepare better questions before an office visit.

The Pew Internet report also found that:

Of survey respondents, 89% are concerned that Internet companies will sell or share data about the health sites they visit.
Almost two-thirds, or 63%, think that storing medical records on the Internet is a bad idea. The remainder think it's a good idea because it gives physicians easy access to their medical records.
Only 9% of health seekers e-mail their doctors.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a nonprofit initiative of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, a Washington, D.C.-based independent research group that studies attitudes toward public policy issues, the press and politics.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

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Key findings from "The Online Health Care Revolution":

55% -- 52 million Americans -- use the Internet to access health and medical information.
41% said the online material influenced their decisions about treatment and care.
89% said they are concerned that Internet companies will sell or share data about the Web sites they visited and what information they accessed with other parties, including insurers and employers.
86% said they were very concerned about getting information from an unreliable source.
63% of those who look up medical information online oppose putting medical records online; the remainder think it's a good idea.
9% exchange e-mail with physicians.
2% said they go online in lieu of seeing a physician.

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The Pew Internet and American Life project (http://www.pewinternet.org/)

Download the report "The Online Health Care Revolution: How the Web helps Americans take better care of themselves" (http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=26)