ABSTRACT
Introduction: Self-diagnosis usually starts with searchengines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, which can lead users toconfusing unsubstantiated information and people with urgentsymptoms may not be directed to emergency care. It can alsocreate anxiety and a situation where there is questioning of thetreating physician. In this paper we focus on understandingand evaluating how Internet based search results have affectedpeople’s health opinions and behaviour.Material and methods: An online cross-sectional pilot studywas conducted among 336 individuals. The statistical toolsused to analyse the data was by using Microsoft Excel. Chisquare test was used and p value <0.05 was taken as significant.Results: A significant number of respondents have triedto self-diagnose a perceived illness with a greater averageamongst the medical group and a significant value amongpeople who believed their online diagnosis to be accurate.Searching for health related advice online did make theparticipants feel more anxious with this trend being greater inthe medical population and more polarised within them.Conclusion: Cyberchondria, an adverse effect of thedigital revolution, also has affected the medical system byinterrupting the line of treatment, elevating anxiety levels of theparticipants, undermining the need for emergency care whennecessary and most importantly, taking assistance of symptomchecker sites in lieu of a physician’s advice. In view of this,symptom checker sites should have more accountability byincreasing the involvement of medical professionals.
ABSTRACT
The effect of mass treatment on questionnaire results in the diagnosis of schistosomiasis mansoni was examined in 267 school children in an endemic area of Tanzania by Kato-Katz analysis of fecal specimens. The questionnaire asked for information about self-diagnosis, abdominal symptoms, blood in stools, history of wild water contact, stool examination and medication for schistosomiasis, and knowledge of the disease. A logistic regression analysis disclosed a significant association between schistosomiasis and "diarrhea" (p ≈ 0.007; odds ratio, 32.0; confidence interval, 2.5 - 403.3) and "abdominal enlargement" (p ≈ 0.003; odds ratio, 15.2; confidence interval, 2.6 - 90.1) among 61 children who had no history of medication for schistosomiasis. The sensitivity and specificity of the model were 86% and 64%, respectively. In contrast, no significant correlation was observed either for the 116 treated children, or for all the 267 children after the mass treatment. We conclude, therefore, that for children who had no history of medication for schistosomiasis, the questionnaire for abdominal manifestations provides reliable information on <I>S. mansoni</I> infection. However, once a child takes medication, the questionnaire becomes unreliable. This observation suggests that immunomodulation by anti-schistosomiasis drugs that kill adult worms exerts an effect on the appearance of abdominal manifestations and might explain the ambiguity of clinical symptoms in chronically infested patients, except in terminal cases. Further studies are required to develop a simple, rapid and cost-effective diagnostic method for monitoring <I>S. mansoni</I> infection after medication in local areas without resort to laboratory-based identification of schistosomiasis.