Medical Information Websites Research Articles

Internet Assessment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Article AbstractBecause this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.Sir: The Internet may provide an important and low-cost means to improve communication between patients and clinicians through e-mail and medical information Web sites. In the past year, several reports have also appeared of the successful use of Internet Web sites to help reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and phobic avoidance (see, for example, Botella et al.1 and Schneider et al.2).†‹†‹

The morning after on the internet: usage of and questions to the emergency contraception website

Objective The objective of this study is to understand the concerns of users of a medical information website on emergency contraception (EC). Methods This study analyzes e-mails sent to the EC website www.Not-2-Late.com over a 5-year period. It also reports on the website's most frequently viewed pages using Microsoft Site Server Analysis. Results Of the 7022 e-mails received, 29% did not contain questions about EC. The remaining e-mails reveal that EC users are concerned with how to use EC (23%), side effects (21%), pregnancy (17%), whether EC is needed in a given situation (14%), EC access (8%), EC effectiveness (4%) and how EC works (3%). Analysis of website page visits shows that visitors were chiefly interested in how to use EC and how to interpret bleeding after EC use. Conclusion The e-mails point to the need for further research on EC-related questions that cannot be answered with the extant medical literature but are of concern to patients — questions such as bleeding after EC use and sexual intercourse that occurs shortly after taking EC pills. The language that writers use to express themselves reveals how users conceptualize their contraceptive and sexual health experiences. Many writers referred to sex with a hormonal contraceptive but not a barrier contraceptive as “unprotected sex,” suggesting that patients may be using terms that do not mean what medical professionals might expect. E-mails sent to the site also demonstrate the importance of alternative resources that provide accurate medical information for patients who are unable to access health care or to discuss certain subjects with their providers.

Medical Students?? Use of Information Resources: Is the Digital Age Dawning?

Clinicians today face the challenge of applying rapidly expanding medical knowledge to particular patients. There would appear to be an information gap between physicians' needs for information and the delivery of such information. Continuing medical education has largely failed to meet this need. The best strategy probably is to pursue learning at the point of care, because retention of new information is much greater than when learners receive new information through lectures. Computer technology permits frequent updates and lacks the size and weight limitations of printed materials. The authors monitored the use by second-year medical students of an electronic medical textbook, UpToDate, during the transition from the preclinical to the clinical years. The students were surveyed anonymously at the end of the third year about their preferred courses of clinical information. Respondents numbered 116 students of a possible 154 for a response rate of 75%. When asked about what information resource they used most often when seeing patients, 85% mentioned either UpToDate (53%) or another medical information web site, MDConsult (38%). Only 14% of students gave paper textbooks as their first choice. The second most preferred resource was MDConsult (38%), followed by paper texts (27%). Medline was the preferred second choice for 15% of students. Most students preferred paper texts to electronic information sources only as their third choice. In general, the students reported using these resources on a daily basis. They required less than 15 minutes to get the answer to most clinical questions. Clearly, today's medical students use electronic information resources much more than do practicing clinicians. This makes it especially important for academic medicine to make certain that these resources meet the same high standards that are applied to paper textbooks and journals.

Evaluation of colposcopy information on the internet

Background: We are living in an expanding world of information by the advent of internet and an estimated 60 million people all over the world use the internet. It is easier than the past for anyone with some knowledge and efforts to access to the Internet. Not only medical professionals but also patients have the same capability of researching a medical topic via the internet. As medical professionals, we are concerned whether the medical information found on the Internet by patients is current and accurate. Methods: To evaluate the accuracy and variability of colposcopy information retrieval from a patient perspective, we categorized and defined the information on the internet with a systematic study of it. We chose eight search engines available on the homepage of Explorer to search and analyze the informations in which the topic of Colposcopy could be found. Furthermore, we analyzed the information whether it contained peer-review or reference to evaluate its reliability. Results: There was considerable variability among the numbers of URLs varied from 11 to 23300 when we tested the search engines using combinations of capitalization and spellings. Descriptions of information out of 181 sites from a search engine(Yahoo) were also evaluated into five types from diagnostic information to anecdotal one. For peer-review system, inaccurate or misleading information was found on web pages and it might lead patients to doubt and distrust medical specialists whose information was contradictory to their own. Conclusion: We should admit that the internet could have positive and potential power in partnership with medical professionals to educate patients, helping them to overcome their disease. We should take an active role in identifying the accurate medical information Web sites and evaluating the quality of them.