Abstract
BackgroundSurveys suggest that a large proportion of people use the internet to search for information on medical symptoms they experience and that around one-third of the people in the United States self-diagnose using online information. However, surveys are known to be biased, and the true rates at which people search for information on their medical symptoms before receiving a formal medical diagnosis are unknown.ObjectiveThis study aimed to estimate the rate at which people search for information on their medical symptoms before receiving a formal medical diagnosis by a health professional.MethodsWe collected queries made on a general-purpose internet search engine by people in the United States who self-identified their diagnosis from 1 of 20 medical conditions. We focused on conditions that have evident symptoms and are neither screened systematically nor a part of usual medical care. Thus, they are generally diagnosed after the investigation of specific symptoms. We evaluated how many of these people queried for symptoms associated with their medical condition before their formal diagnosis. In addition, we used a survey questionnaire to assess the familiarity of laypeople with the symptoms associated with these conditions.ResultsOn average, 15.49% (1792/12,367, SD 8.4%) of people queried about symptoms associated with their medical condition before receiving a medical diagnosis. A longer duration between the first query for a symptom and the corresponding diagnosis was correlated with an increased likelihood of people querying about those symptoms (rho=0.6; P=.005); similarly, unfamiliarity with the association between a condition and its symptom was correlated with an increased likelihood of people querying about those symptoms (rho=−0.47; P=.08). In addition, worrying symptoms were 14% more likely to be queried about.ConclusionsOur results indicate that there is large variability in the percentage of people who query the internet for their symptoms before a formal medical diagnosis is made. This finding has important implications for systems that attempt to screen for medical conditions.
Highlights
Online self-diagnosis of health conditions is a well-known phenomenon that has grown substantially with ease of access to medical information facilitated by the internet and mobile technologies [1,2]
Our results indicate that there is large variability in the percentage of people who query the internet for their symptoms before a formal medical diagnosis is made
The population of self-identifying users was defined as those people who made a diagnosis ascertainment query (DAQ), indicating that they had been formally diagnosed with 1 of the 20 conditions analyzed in this study
Summary
Online self-diagnosis of health conditions is a well-known phenomenon that has grown substantially with ease of access to medical information facilitated by the internet and mobile technologies [1,2]. The prevalence of self-diagnosis is leading countries and large epidemiologic centers to use the available information for public health goals [5,6] Epidemics such as influenza and dengue fever have been tracked by observing the number of people who query internet search engines for the symptoms of these diseases [7,8]. Conditions need to be independently characterized to understand the type and number of people who are searching for information and the common words used for these searches It is currently not known how commonly people conduct an online search for their condition before diagnosis by a health professional. Surveys are known to be biased, and the true rates at which people search for information on their medical symptoms before receiving a formal medical diagnosis are unknown
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