Patient online research diminishes trust in physician diagnoses

Searching symptoms online could impact how much patients trust professional diagnoses. A study, set to be presented at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco, analyzes how patients receiving health information online can lead to more skepticism when it comes to a physician's diagnosis.

The study, titled "Paging Dr. Google: The Effects of Online Health Information on Parental Trust in Pediatrician' Medical Diagnoses," looks at how searching for symptoms online affected parents' trust in diagnoses made by their children’s physician.

"The internet is a powerful information tool, but it is limited by its inability to reason and think," said lead author Ruth Milanaik, DO, an associate professor at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. "Simply entering a collection of symptoms in a search engine may not reflect the actual medical situation at hand. These computer-generated diagnoses may mislead patients or parents and cause them to question their doctors' medical abilities and seek a second opinion, thereby delaying treatment."

Through the Mechanical Turk online research program, the study enrolled 1,374 parents and split them into groups. Each group was shown a picture of a child who "has had a rash and worsening fever for three days.” One group viewed photos of online information describing symptoms of scarlet fever, a second group viewed pictures listing symptoms of Kawasaki disease, and the third group received no pictures for control measures.

After viewing the images, participants learned that doctors had diagnosed the child with scarlet fever. Participants then rated their level of trust in their doctor’s diagnosis and likelihood of seeking second opinion on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely).

Results showed that 90.5 percent of participants in group one trusted the doctor’s diagnosis, compared to 81 percent of the control group. That group was also less likely to seek a second opinion, at 21.4 percent, than the control group, at 42 percent. Only 61.3 percent of group two participants trusted the doctor’s diagnosis after viewing images of Kawasaki disease, with 64.2 percent likely to seek a second opinion.