Medical Information Search Research Articles

Киберхондрия — самостоятельное явление или проявление ипохондрических особенностей онлайн?

Background. The concept of cyberchondria is proposed to describe a psychological phenomenon that manifests in the increase in health anxiety after excessive search for medical information. The structure of cyberchondria is quite heterogeneous. Features of actions (compulsive actions in search of information about health and diseases online) the relation of these actions to other human activities (excessive search), emotional (distress after the search) and behavioral (the search for confirmation) consequences of those actions, as well as mentalsetting (mistrust in medical experts) can be revealed in this structure. The question of the independence of cyberchondria, which is closely connected to obsessive-compulsive symptoms, health anxiety, hypochondriacal behavior and user activity, is also controversial. Objective. The article aims to detect the relationship between cyberchondria and signs of excessive Internet use , somatization, hypochondrization, and health anxiety. Design. The present study (before the coronavirus pandemic) involved 127 healthy respondents aged 18 to 70 years old and 33 active users of online medical websites. The respondents filled out the Cyberchondria Severity Scale, the scales of hypochondriacal behavior, beliefs about the body and health, health anxiety, Internet addiction and a number of checklists assessing their user activity and behavior related to health and illness. Results. In the structure of cyberchondria, it is possible to reliably distinguish closely related components of the search for confirmation, compulsive actions, excessive and repetitive search, and distress after the search. Excessive search for information is more often associated with viewing images of diseases, seeking the confirmation along with reading reviews (i.e., it more often complements an actual search for a medical care, or cross-checks the results). Compulsive actions and distress are most closely associated with searching for information on social networks. Mistrust in healthcare professionals is weakly associated with cyberchondria. It reveals itself in a rare inclination to seek for a formal medical opinion both online and offline. However, a greater propensity for seeking for the information about alternative medicine on the Internet is observed. Manifestations of cyberchondria (apart from the mistrust in medical professionals) are closely associated with an excessive user activity and the tendency for somatoform symptoms and hypochondriacal behavior. This supports the hypothesis that cyberchondria is a specific behavior that is based on other clinical-psychological phenomena.

Optimal Deep Neural Network-Based Model for Answering Visual Medical Question

Over the last few years, the amount of available information has increased exponentially in all professional fields, including the medical field. Modern-day patients have access to a wealth of medical information, whether it be from brochures, newspapers, television campaigns, or internet documents. To facilitate and accelerate the search for medical information, more precise systems have been implemented, such as visual question-and-answer systems. A visual question-and-answer system is designed to provide direct and precise answers to questions asked in natural language. In this context, we propose an optimal deep neural network model based on an adaptive optimization algorithm, which takes medical images and natural language questions as input, then provides precise answers as output. Our model starts by classifying medical questions following an embedding phase. We then use a deep learning model for visual and textual feature extraction and emergence. In this paper, we aim to maximize the accuracy rate and minimize the number of epochs in order to accelerate the process. This is a multi-objective optimization problem. The selection of deep learning model parameters, such as epoch number and batch size, is an essential step in improving the model, thus, we use an adaptive genetic algorithm to determine the optimal deep learning parameters. Finally, we propose a dense layer for answer retrieval. To evaluate our model, we used the ImageCLEF 2019 VQA data set. Our model outperforms existing visual question-and-answer systems and offers a significantly higher retrieval accuracy rate.

Health Information-Seeking Behavior of Students at Kuwait University

This study aimed to investigate the health information-seeking behavior of Kuwait University undergraduates. The study employed a cross-sectional design using a semi-structured, web-based questionnaire. Most students (68.8%) searched for health information. The most common topics that students searched, by search engines, were related to bones, joints, and muscles. Many of the students (34.9%) discussed the health information they obtained on the Internet with physicians/medical specialists to consult health professionals. The study concluded that patients search for medical information from the Internet and that the doctor-patient relationship is influenced by the presence of health information on the Internet.

Cyberchondria During the Coronavirus Pandemic: The Effects of Neuroticism and Optimism.

Health anxiety during the current coronavirus pandemic can be a serious psychological issue, amplified by the medical uncertainty around this disease and social isolation. As older people are especially at risk of becoming severely ill, it is important to examine the personal factors that make members of this age group more prone to health anxiety. Previous studies indicated that cyberchondria, i.e., the repeated online search for medical information, exacerbates health anxiety. The present research investigated the effect of two opposing traits, optimism and neuroticism, on cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic. The associations of cyberchondria with demographic factors (age, gender, and education) were also examined. A sample of 880 participants, aged 15–67, 65% of whom were female, participated in an online survey. Results show that neuroticism, age, and being female are positively associated with cyberchondria. Optimism was found to be related to cyberchondria, but this effect was qualified by a significant interaction with age. Further analysis revealed that the effect of optimism was significant only in the highest age group. Moreover, among these elderly participants, the psychologically protective influence of optimism against cyberchondria emerged as larger than the opposite effect of neuroticism. This demonstrates the mental benefits of encouraging a positive outlook on the current health crisis and on one’s personal resilience in facing it, especially among the elderly. Conversely, among people who use the Internet as a major source of medical information, those high in neuroticism may be more prone to cyberchondria.

Internet and social media use in dermatology patients: Search behavior and impact on patient-physician relationship.

The traditional patient-physician relationship is being changed by the patients' searches for medical information on the Internet and in social media (SM). Freely available medical information online bears enormous potential but also holds dangers. In this cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study, the patients' motivation, preferences and unmet needs when searching for medical information online and the impact on the patient-physician relationship were assessed using Spearman's correlation coefficients, χ2 -tests and paired t-tests. Among 460 participants, 82.4% had already used the Internet/SM to gain medical information, but in only 9.4% their dermatologists had raised this topic. Online search for medical information was associated with female gender (P = .048), a higher skin-related burden (P = .020), higher level of education (P = .072), higher income (P = .019), anxiety (P = .004), and adnexal skin diseases (P = .043). For 16.1% of patients, "the Internet/SM" was their most important source of medical information; 81.4% deemed the impact of their online searches on their patient-physician relationship as neutral, 16.0% as positive, 2.6% as negative. The patients' top three unmet needs were "Online consultations", "Professional content on YouTube" and "Chat opportunities". Online search for medical information is a very important topic for most dermatology patients but it may not be adequately addressed by dermatologists. Our results indicate that from the patients`perspective such online searches do not have a significant impact on patient-physician relationship.

THE POTENTIAL OF INTERDICIPLINARY RESEARCHES: RUSSIAN BIOMEDICAL PUBLICATIONS IN COLLABORATION WITH LIBRARY SPECIALISTS

The article reviews interdisciplinary problems as a versatile phenomenon. Interdisciplinary is more often understood as interaction between different scientific disciplines, which can range from simple exchange of ideas to organization of joint research activities. Taking into account this understanding of the interdisciplinary phenomenon, the prerequisites for joint scientific activity between library specialists and the medical (biologists) community are considered. An attempt is made to analyze the possibilities of the library scientific community to participate in such studies. In the practical part, the Russian biomedical publications with the library employees’ participation, presented on the e Library platform, are analyzed: an array of interdisciplinary articles on this subject is revealed, the analysis of the sample by year, participation of authors, libraries, disciplines, scientometric indicators is carried out. The results made it possible to understand the features of the tasks and the specifics of research strategies. Suggestions on possible trends of interdisciplinary researches development in the libraries of Russia are formulated. Conditions, contributing to increasing the chances of library specialists to be included in interdisciplinary researches are stated based on the Reference and Bibliographic Department of SB RAS experience. Foreign interdisciplinary publications are considered by referring to reviews on this issue. The studied articles from authoritative journals on informatics and librarianship testifies to the number growth publications in biomedical disciplines prepared with participation of library specialists. A review publication in the Journal of the Medical Library Association covering interdisciplinary publications with participation of library professionals for 2008 – 2017 served as a model for the analysis. The authors concluded that the main topics of cooperation between librarians and tutors were related to the assessment of medical and social aspects of patients’ health, the search for medical information and clinical decisionmaking.

Testing the Italian version of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale and a metacognitive model of cyberchondria.

Cyberchondria refers to the tendency to excessively and compulsively search for online medical information despite the distress experienced, with consequent impairment of daily-life activities. The current two studies sought to explore (i) the factor structure of the Italian version of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS) and (ii) a metacognitive model of cyberchondria. Participants were Italian community adults who reported using the Internet to search for health-related information (Study 1: N = 374, Study 2: N = 717). Results from Study 1 supported the Italian version of the CSS exhibiting a five-factor structure, with the resulting scales demonstrating good internal consistency, 5-week test-retest reliability, and generally strong correlations with indices of health anxiety. In Study 2, results of a path analysis showed that the negative metacognitive belief domain ("thoughts are uncontrollable") shared the strongest direct association with each of the five dimensions of cyberchondria, followed by beliefs about rituals. Consistently, the strongest indirect associations were found between "thoughts are uncontrollable" and all the five cyberchondria dimensions via beliefs about rituals. These results provide support for an Italian version of the CSS and the metacognitive conceptualization of cyberchondria.

Head Concepts Selection for Verbose Medical Queries Expansion

Semantic concepts and relations encoded in domain-specific ontologies and other medical semantic resources play a crucial role in deciphering terms in medical queries and documents. The exploitation of these resources for tackling the semantic gap issue has been widely studied in the literature. However, there are challenges that hinder their widespread use in real-world applications. Among these challenges is the insufficient knowledge individually encoded in existing medical ontologies, which is magnified when users express their information needs using long-winded natural language queries. In this context, many of the users query terms are either unrecognized by the used ontologies, or cause retrieving false positives that degrade the quality of current medical information search approaches. In this article, we explore the combination of multiple extrinsic semantic resources in the development of a full-fledged medical information search framework to: i) highlight and expand head medical concepts in verbose medical queries (i.e. concepts among query terms that significantly contribute to the informativeness and intent of a given query), ii) build semantically enhanced inverted index documents, iii) contribute to a heuristical weighting technique in the query document matching process. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we conducted several experiments over the CLEF eHealth 2014 dataset. Findings indicate that the proposed method combining several extrinsic semantic resources proved to be more effective than related approaches in terms of precision measure.

Patients' Use of the Internet to Find Reliable Medical Information About Minor Ailments: Vignette-Based Experimental Study.

BackgroundLittle is known about the exact process of how patients search for medical information on the internet and what they retrieve. There is especially a paucity of literature on browsing for information on minor ailments, a term used for harmless diseases that are very common in the general population and thus have a significant impact on health care.ObjectiveThis vignette-based experimental study aimed to explore what kind of Web-based search strategies are applied and how search strategies, demographic characteristics, and the quality of the visited websites relate to finding the right diagnosis. Additional goals were to describe how searching on the Web influences one’s perception of the severity of the potential diagnosis and whether or not the participants would discuss the information they found on the internet with their doctors.MethodsOut of 1372 survey participants, 355 were randomly sampled, and 155 of them were recruited and assigned to one of four clinical scenarios. Each search term they used was classified as one of three search strategies: (1) hypothesis testing, (2) narrowing within the general hypothesis area, and (3) symptom exploration. The quality of the websites used was determined by using the DISCERN instrument. To compare the diagnostic accuracy of the participants before and after the internet search, a McNemar test was used. Chi-square tests were used to describe which factors are related to the chosen search strategy. A multivariate binary logistic regression model was constructed to predict which factors are related to finding a sound diagnosis after searching the internet for health information.ResultsMost participants (65.8%, 102/155) used the symptom exploration strategy. However, this depends on the assigned scenario (P<.001) and the self-estimated severity score of the symptoms before the internet search (P=.001). A significant relation was found between choosing an accurate diagnosis and age (odds ratio [OR] 0.94, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.98) and the clinical scenario, as well as the use of high-quality websites (OR 7.49, 95% CI 1.85 to 30.26). Browsing the internet did not lead to a statistically significant change in participants’ beliefs about the severity of the condition (McNemar test, P=.85). Most participants (65%) shared their retrieved information with their physician and most of them (75%) received a positive response.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that most patients use a symptom-based approach; however, if patients expect the potential diagnosis to be severe, they tend to use a hypothesis verification strategy more often and are therefore prone to certain forms of bias. In addition, self-diagnosing accuracy is related to younger age, the symptom scenario, and the use of high-quality websites. We should find ways to guide patients toward search strategies and websites that may more likely lead to accurate decision making.

CORR Insights®: What are the Implications of Excessive Internet Searches for Medical Information by Orthopaedic Patients?

CORR Insights®: What are the Implications of Excessive Internet Searches for Medical Information by Orthopaedic Patients?

What are the Implications of Excessive Internet Searches for Medical Information by Orthopaedic Patients?

Cyberchondria may be defined as heightened distress evoked through excessive searches of the internet for medical information. In healthy people, cyberchondria is associated with a greater intolerance of uncertainty and greater health anxiety. These relationships are likely bidirectional. People who have a greater intolerance of uncertainty may be more likely to search the internet for medical information and have greater health anxiety. This greater health anxiety may lead to an increased likelihood of engaging in further internet searches and greater intolerance of uncertainty. These three constructs are important for patients because they impact patient function and health care costs. We were specifically interested in understanding the role of cyberchondria in the association between intolerance of uncertainty and health anxiety among orthopaedic patients because it has not been explored before and because knowledge about these interactions could inform treatment recommendations. Does cyberchondria mediate (that is, explain) the association between intolerance of uncertainty and health anxiety in orthopaedic patients searching for medical information on the internet, after controlling for potentially confounding variables? This was a cross-sectional study of 104 patients who had searched the internet for any medical information about their current condition. A research assistant approached 155 patients attending two orthopaedic outpatient clinics, one hand and upper extremity service and one sports medicine clinic, during a 3-month period. Ten patients declined to participate and 41 patients were excluded, predominantly because they had never searched for medical information online. The patients completed the Cyberchondria Severity Scale, Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-short version, Short Health Anxiety Inventory, and a numerical rating scale for pain intensity at baseline, as well as demographic and clinical questionnaires. We performed a series of linear regression analyses to determine whether a greater intolerance of uncertainty predicts greater cyberchondria (mediator) and whether cyberchondria predicts greater health anxiety. Although it is more appropriate to use the language of association (such as "whether cyberchondria is associated with health anxiety") in many observational studies, here, we opted to use the language of causation because this is the conventional language for studies testing statistical mediation. After controlling for potentially confounding variables including pain intensity, multiple pain conditions, and education, cyberchondria explained 33% of the variance of the effect of intolerance of uncertainty on health anxiety (95% CI, 6.98 to 114.72%; p < 0.001). Among orthopaedic patients who search the internet for medical information, a greater intolerance of uncertainty is associated with greater cyberchondria, which is associated with greater anxiety about health. Identifying patients with an intolerance of uncertainty and educating them about the negative role of compulsive searches for medical information may improve the success of orthopaedic treatment. Orthopaedic surgeons should also consider making referrals for cognitive behavioral therapy in these instances to increase the patient's tolerance of uncertainty, decrease internet searching habits, and reduce anxiety about health. Level III, prognostic study.

Cyberchondria: Implications of online behavior and health anxiety as determinants

Background: Cyberchondria is excessive worrying about one's health that develops following internet search for medical and health information. Aim: This study investigates how the development of cyberchondria relates to characteristics of the person searching the internet including their medical history, age, and health-related anxiety. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between 2015 and 2016. The “Dr. Net” survey consisted of 32 questions based on previously published surveys probing the use of internet search for health-related information. Participants were recruited from the authors' own social network by receiving a hyperlink through social media platforms and e-mails. One hundred and ninety-one English-speaking individuals, majority from Canada and the USA, completed the “Dr. Net” questionnaire online and anonymously through SurveyMonkey®. Results: Females sought health-care advice earlier than males (**P = 0.005). Younger age groups exhibited higher frequencies of internet search, daily versus weekly, versus monthly versus yearly, with differences between the 21 and 30 versus >60 (***P = 0.000), 21–30 versus 51–60 (**P = 0.011), 21–30 versus 31–40 (**P = 0.019), 31–40 versus 51–60 (**P = 0.012), 41–50 versus 51–60 (**P = 0.021), and 60 years' age groups (**P = 0.024). 30.7% reported developing cyberchondria. Indicators of cyberchondria correlated with older age (r = 0.154, P=**0.036), negative medical history (r = 0.191, **P = 0.013), health anxiety (r = 0.268, ***P = 0.000), and hypochondria (r = 0.142, P = 0.062). Less than four percent perceived their internet search as disadvantageous. Conclusion: Cyberchondria was reported by a third of those who conducted health-related internet searches, with higher frequencies in older, previously healthy individuals who had health anxiety.

Reliability and validity study of the Turkish version of cyberchondria severity scale

The exacerbation of health anxiety as the result of repeated online searches for medical information has been termed cyberchondria. Cyberchondria may lead to increased use of health services and increased healthcare costs. The aim of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of Turkish form of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS). This study was conducted on 335 employees who work in Pamukkale University. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was used for concurrent validity. After language adaptation and content validity of the CSS, confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) was performed. The mean age of participants was 38.2 ± 8.5 years and 64.5% of them were male. Cronbach alpha coefficient of CSS calculated for the reliability was 0.89, while the subscales ranged from 0.65 to 0.85. The correlation coefficients for test-retest reliability were ranged from 0.53–0.71. Correlation of CSS with DASS was r = 0.33. Fit indices based on CFA results were all excellent or within acceptable ranges. The Turkish version of CSS has adequate psychometric properties of validity and reliability, and can be used to assess cyberchondria.

Importancia de los reportes de casos. Guía para su diseño y elaboración

Case reports are an invaluable tool in the professional development of health workers and inseparable of the residents and fellow’s training. Their aim is to improve patient-centered care (customized medicine) during daily clinical practice, to stimulate the most upto-date search for medical information (clinical research-evidencebased medicine), to promote knowledge of diseases and their most advanced treatments —thus increasing medical information, and they are the first step in developing writing and scientific publication skills, which are a requirement and an obligation in current contemporary medicine. The present article has the purpose of presenting, in general, the importance of case reports in medical literature and also to establish a guide for its elaboration and design that could be useful for residents and fellows in the health area.

A Progressive Multilevel Model for Selecting Medical Tourism Destinations: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: The overall objective of this study was to design a progressive multilevel model using the Delphi method for selecting a medical tourism destination which includes three levels of decision making: the destination country, then the destination city, and finally, the healthcare center in the selected city. This model can be used as a new area of research for further planning in Iran’s growing medical tourism industry. Methods: This study is a descriptive, practical research using a qualitative approach. In the preliminary stage, an extensive review of the literature was performed, and the Delphi method was used to identify factors influencing the selection of Iran as a medical tourism destination. Experts participating in the Delphi panel reached consensuses after applying three rounds. Analysis of the data from the Delphi panel resulted in the construction of a multilevel model for selecting a medical tourism destination. Results: The outcome of this research was a constructed multilevel model for selecting a medical tourism destination. The model indicates all factors influencing the selection of each level of destination. It also includes two stages of decision making (medical tourism and information search), which come before the selection of three levels of destination. Conclusion: Iran’s political and economic situations after the imposition of sanctions and its problems in providing banking services for medical tourists are among the factors influencing medical tourists not to choose Iran as their destination. Government support, planned promotional activities, and JCI accreditations could increase the attraction of medical tourists to Iran.

Report on the SIGIR 2016 Workshop on Medical Information Retrieval (MedIR)

The workshop on Medical Information Retrieval took place at SIGIR 2016 in Pisa, Italy on July 21. The workshop programme included seven oral presentations of refereed papers, four posters and an invited keynote presentation. This allowed time for lively discussions among the 27 participants. These made clear the significant and diverse challenges in the area of medical information retrieval and the significant interest in developing mechanisms to go about tackling them. Successfully addressing them will give added value to the wide variety of users that can profit from medical information search, including patients, general health professionals and specialist groups such as radiologists who mainly search for images and image-related information.

Medical information retrieval: introduction to the special issue

Medical information search refers to methodologies and technologies that seek to improve access to medical information archives via a process of information retrieval (IR). Such information is now potentially accessible from many sources including the general web, social media, journal articles, and hospital records. Health-related content is one of the most searched-for topics on the internet, and as such this is an important domain for IR research. Medical information is of interest to a wide variety of users, including patients and their families, researchers, general practitioners and clinicians, and practitioners with specific expertise such as radiologists. There are several dedicated services that seek to make this information more easily accessible, such as the ‘Health on the Net’ system for

A study of internet searches for medical information in dermatology patients: The patient–physician relationship

BackgroundThe use of the Internet to search for medical information is considered by some physicians as an invasion of their medical domain and a reflection of a lack of trust in their advice and recommendations. ObjectiveThe main objective of this study was to estimate the amount of medical information gathered from the Internet and to establish whether these online searches reflect a lower degree of patient satisfaction. Patients and methodsA survey was conducted among 175 patients seen at the melanoma and psoriasis units of San Cecilio University Hospital in Granada, Spain between May 2010 and December 2011. ResultsOnline searches for medical information were performed by 44.4% of patients who returned correctly completed questionnaires. The main reasons given for these searches were to complement appropriate information provided by the physician (67.3%) and to gather information before consultation with the physician (36.5%). Variables associated with the search for medical information on the Internet in the multivariate analysis were a higher educational level, a higher score on two items in the Need for Cognition Scale, and consultation of mass media other than the Internet. LimitationsStudies with larger numbers of patients and other diseases, however, are required to confirm these results. ConclusionsThe search for medical information is a widespread reality among patients with psoriasis and melanoma and it is not associated with a poor relationship with the physician. Dermatologists can play a beneficial role by recommending trustworthy Internet sites during the patient's visit and by promoting the development of pages by scientific societies to provide high-quality information.

Anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty as potential risk factors for cyberchondria: A replication and extension examining dimensions of each construct

BackgroundPreliminary findings suggest that anxiety sensitivity (AS) and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) may confer vulnerability for cyberchondria, defined as repeated internet searches for medical information that exacerbates health anxiety. Prior studies are limited because it remains unclear whether specific AS or IU dimensions differentially relate to certain cyberchondria dimensions. MethodsThe present study examined associations among AS, IU, and cyberchondria dimensions using a sample of community adults (N=578) located in the United States. ResultsAs predicted, physical AS and inhibitory IU were the only AS or IU dimensions to share unique associations with the distress cyberchondria dimension after controlling for the overlap among the AS dimensions, IU dimensions, and health anxiety. Cognitive AS and social AS unexpectedly evidenced unique associations with cyberchondria dimensions. LimitationsThe results are limited by the cross-sectional study design and use of a community, rather than clinical, sample. ConclusionsThis study provides evidence that specific AS and IU dimensions may confer vulnerability to certain cyberchondria dimensions. Further clarifying associations among AS, IU, and cyberchondria may lead to improvements in our conceptualization and, ultimately, treatment of cyberchondria.

Carpal tunnel syndrome: Analysis of online patient information with the EQIP tool

Patients suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) actively search for medical information on the Internet. The World Wide Web represents the main source of patient information. The aim of this study was to systematically assess the quality of patient information about CTS in the Internet. A qualitative and quantitative assessment of websites was performed with the modified Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQIP) tool that contains 36 standardized items. Five hundred websites with information on CTS treatment options were identified through Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL. Duplicates and irrelevant websites were excluded. One hundred and ten websites were included. Only five websites addressed more than 20 items; quality scores were not significantly different between the various providing groups. A median of 15 EQIP items was found, with the top website addressing 26 out of 36 items. Major complications such as median nerve injury were reported in 27% of the websites and their treatment in only 3%. This analysis revealed several critical shortcomings in the quality of the information provided to patients suffering from CTS. There is a collective need to provide interactive, informative and educational websites for standard procedures in hand surgery. These websites should be compatible with international quality standards for hand surgery procedures.