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Health See other Health Articles Title: Doctors being sidelined as sick Australians seek advice, treatment from online forums MELBOURNE, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Sick Australians are increasingly ignoring their doctors and relying on invalidated health information from online forums, Melbourne researchers said on Friday. Researchers from the University of Melbourne found there were thousands of online health communities (OHCs) where unqualified people shared health experiences and offered medical advice with those who may have experienced the same condition. After examining 600 postings from 12 different medical conditions including cancers and chronic diseases, and interviewing more than a dozen users, researcher Dr Reeva Lederman said OHC users' attempts to empower themselves with information had the effect of sidelining doctors and health professionals. "Medical consumers are not just using the online community as an adjunct to conventional medical care, but many have moved their regular doctor out the equation altogether," Lederman said in a press release on Friday. "Testimonies on online health communities -- like 'Patients Like Me' - show patients using this site have a diverse range of conditions of varying severity, but none of them use the word ' doctor' in talking about who helped them solve their medical problems." Lederman warned advice from qualified medical professionals was lacking in most online forums, and this could lead to dangerous outcomes. "It is a basic principle of medical care that treatments need to be individualized and small differences in patients can be very significant to outcomes. This is what is missing from OHCs," she said. Researchers found that users placed significant weight on the punctuation, grammar and expression of other users posting advice, placing more trust in those posts with better literacy skills. "They talk about the support they have received from other members of the community, of the range of tools on the site that they can use to track their progress. They look for specialists in the area of their condition with the help of other lay members of the site," Lederman said. The power of OHCs is noted in the research that calls the forums "high-value but also high-risk information sources." "A people-based mechanism based on the similarity between patients can meet both users' informational and emotional needs which can substantially assist patients' self-empowerment within evidence-based healthcare practice," researchers said in their findings. Editor: xuxin Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: All (#0)
PLM link: https://www.patientslikeme.com/join
#2. To: Tatarewicz (#1)
Very good - thanks.
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