Using “Dr Google” for health purposes is controversial. Some have expressed concerns that it can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, bad advice on where to seek treatment (triage), and increased anxiety (cyberchondria). Many physicians believe that using the internet to search for one’s symptoms is a bad idea and this provides some evidence that is unlikely to be the case,” he said. “The question remains as to how much internet searching is ‘enough’ to reach the goal of understanding what the health symptom is about. The absence of a ‘stop signal’ to internet searching may spell the risk for the development of cyberchondriac behaviour.

Source: The Irish Times March 30, 2021 11:15 UTC