Sometimes it is difficult to find a doctor in a short time, and since it only takes one click to find out something on the Internet, many people ask "Dr. Google" for advice.
Each of us has at least once looked for a solution to our problems on Google, and every day a million people search for terms like depression, pneumonia and diabetes, according to statistics. It may be simpler, but an internet search often leads to a simple headache being easily mistaken for a brain tumor and chest pain for breast cancer.
Doctors believe that this trend leads patients into a "psychological trap", creating unnecessary anxiety and at the same time preventing them from visiting the right doctor. "Anxiety is nothing new, but the Internet and easy access to medical information have, without a doubt, made the problem even bigger in recent years," says Dr. Daniel Atkinson, chief expert at Treated.com. He explains that it only takes one general opinion to plant an idea in a person's head and increase anxiety.
It may come as a surprise, but pneumonia is the "most searched" term on Google when it comes to health, so about 2,24 million people seek advice for this condition every month, according to the results of a survey conducted on the Treated.com portal. In second place is depression, followed by diabetes and anxiety.
dr. Atkinson, however, admits that it is good that we have the necessary information at our fingertips for some things: "It will help patients to be informed about their problem - what it is and who they should turn to for help." However, it most often happens that patients remain in a panic because they have created a negative image due to superficial information.
In some cases, a certain psychological trap occurs where a person is confused by different texts. One says that the symptom is a sign of some serious illness, which is why the person is afraid to go to the doctor, and the other may think that everything is exaggerated and that the symptoms are unimportant, so they don't seek the doctor's opinion at all, claims Atkinson.
Last year, a health summit in Hanover concluded that the constant availability of medical information of questionable accuracy on the Internet has a disturbing effect on patients. Professionals from the world of medicine, politicians, entrepreneurs and scientists gathered at the conference to discuss the digitization of health care.
The President of the Medical Association of Lower Saxony, Martina Venker, pointed to the increasingly widespread occurrence of cyberchondria, an unfounded fear of a serious illness after searching for symptoms on the Internet. Such searches only increase the fear of people susceptible to hypochondria, studies have shown.
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