ReviewPatients using the Internet to obtain health information: How this affects the patient–health professional relationship
Introduction
Health information is one of the most frequently sought topics on the Internet. Reuters [1] reported that on average 53% of Americans search the Internet for health information and, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project [2], of the 63% of Americans who access the Internet (128 million people), 66% of these look for health and medical information. In the last decade, the percentage of adults who have accessed the Internet to look for health information has rapidly increased, especially in the United States of America. In 2002, 80% (110 million Americans) of all adults online in the United States were estimated to have looked for health information. This was an increase of 13 million users from 2001 and 50 million from 1998 [3]. Fox and Rainie [4] estimated that, at that time, Internet users could search as many as 10,000 medically related web sites.
With regards to Europe, a recent European Union (EU) Eurobarometer survey on online health information [5] found that, for Europeans, health professionals are still by far the main source of health information (45.3% of EU health population) followed by the traditional media, such as television (19.8%) and newspapers (7.4%). Nevertheless, on average, nearly a quarter of Europeans (23%) use the Internet to obtain health information (this varies between countries, for example, 40% in Denmark and the Netherlands and 15% or less in Greece, Spain and Portugal) and 41.5% of the people within the EU think that the Internet is a good way of obtaining health information [5].
Section snippets
Methods
This article is a review article, summarizing multiple empirical studies on a single subject, and is not intended to be a meta-analysis. To review the health application use of the Internet by patients, and how this could affect the patient–health professional relationship and communication, an Internet literature search was conducted on the following health electronic databases: PubMed, British Nursing Index, CINAHL, Ovid and AHMED using the terms ‘Internet’, ‘health information’,
The use of the Internet by patients and health professionals
Patients do not see the Internet as a replacement for the health professional. A study of 1322 British Internet users indicated that people go online after seeing the health professional for confirmation of the information given and to gather additional information [6]. However, female patients with breast cancer also turn to the Internet for health information if they become dissatisfied with the information provided to them by the health professionals and these information seekers tend to be
Discussion
Health professionals can respond to the more ‘Internet informed’ patient in three ways. In the first scenario, the relationship between health professional and patient becomes health professional-centred. Health professionals, especially those with poor information technology (IT) skills, may feel their medical authority being threatened by the information the patient brings and will respond defensively by asserting their ‘expert opinion’. They will use the short consultation to quickly and
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