The Internet is a lousy doctor

Unquenchable thirst for knowledge can lead to erroneous home diagnoses

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By Jukka Ruukki
     
      It fits like a nose on a face! According to the article on the Internet, the symptoms of this disease are palpitations, shortness of breath, fatigue, headache, weakness, and pains in the joints and muscles.
      Finally - an explanation for all my vague symptoms.
      Thank God for the Internet!
     
For those interested in their own well-being the Internet offers a veritable cornucopia of medical information. However, there is a dark side to this. There are some heavy consumers of health-related websites who will blithely make their own diagnoses and then consult a doctor, even though there is no need.
      MD Eeva Ketola knows the type. They will show up for an appointment, clutching a bundle of papers printed off the Internet, steadfast in their faith that they are finally on their way to finding an explanation for their strange symptoms.
      "In the worst cases people worry about a disease that they do not actually have", Ketola says.
      "The phenomenon is not very widespread, but one runs into it now and then."
      According to Ketola, one patient in every few hundred will arrive at the doctor's office inspired by some tidbit of information gleaned from a website. They have in common a concern that they may have some long-term disease for which medicine has not managed to find a satisfactory diagnosis or treatment.
     
A patient afflicted by cyber-ailments can be quite a challenge to a doctor. A large part of the time devoted to a patient can be spent correcting erroneous information.
      Why do some of us lose our sense of judgement when we go online? After all, people have read medical books before.
      "The difference is that you could trust the books, but not the Internet", says Hasse Karlsson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Helsinki.
      "There are not necessarily any guarantees about the reliability of information floating around on the web." Professor Karlsson compares medical websites and portals with a popular stereotype applied to residents of Finland's southeastern Savo region: "When they open their mouths, the responsibility shifts to the listener."
      According to a report by the British Medical Association, one quarter of the websites on the Internet concerning health matters are more or less unreliable. The actual amount is probably much higher than that.
      The information superhighway is crowded with shady characters trying to promote their own beliefs. However, a big part of the problem is sitting there at the keyboard.
     
Some of us tend to fear the worst-case scenarios in everything. A mystical disease described in detail on the Internet can be a convenient answer to every fear and desire that a person has.
      Heredity also has something to do with it. Research suggests that the healthy relatives of schizophrenia patients are more likely to have a stronger fascination with fantasy and magic than the population at large.
      "Perhaps the tendency to believe mystical explanations for a disease is partly determined by heredity", Hasse Karlsson adds. About one percent of the population have schizophrenia, and their relatives comprise a much greater proportion.
      Karlsson says that the phenomenon is akin to hypochondria in many ways. Hypochondriacs suffer from a constant fear of serious illness, even if tests do not reveal any organic disorders.
      Hypochondriacs seek information to calm themselves, but end up running around in circles, because there are always new things that suggest the possible existence of yet another deadly disease. Information only increases the amount of pain. The Internet contains a built-in trap.
      The Internet is such an endless universe, that instead of security, web surfers end up more uncertain than ever. The end never comes, because there is always a new link to click.
     
There is also something in the age in which we live that tends to favour home-spun diagnoses. Our secularised society with its focus on the individual encourages people to take their health and bodies into their own hands.
      The flood of electronic information places a greater emphasis on the changing role of a doctor. "The doctor is increasingly a guide and an interpreter", Eeva Ketola observes.
      Ketola herself serves as the editor of www.kaypahoito.fi, a web site set put up by the Finnish Medical Society Duodecim, which contains instructions for the home treatment of various ailments. The database has easy-to-understand instructions for dealing with nearly 50 different medical complaints.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.4.2005

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