healthy
May 15, 2024

Why it bothers doctors when patients inform themselves in the network

The other day on the sofa. I feel a pain next to the groin, towards the belly. At night he answers again. Also during the day. More often. Of course, I'll throw in the search engine: what could that be? There, where it hurts, is the intestine. The ovary? The bar? Lymph nodes? If there was something, it would be pretty bad, or ...? It hurts even more. So I bring not only symptoms but also fears to the internist. "Mhmh," he does. And probably thinks: Another false alarm from the Internet. The man in white pulls out his standard diagnostic program and mumbled something about "nothing, they're not part of the risk group either."

Study shows: Every fourth doctor advises against the search in the network

Am I to be relieved now that he has found nothing, or outraged, because he does not elaborate on my concerns and does not think much further when he's done his standard diagnostics?
That a quack like Dr. Google penetrates to her office, seems to bother many doctors in Germany, as a recent study by the Bertelsmann Health Foundation and the Barmer GEK shows. Of more than 800 physicians in private practice, 54 percent find informed patients problematic. 30 percent think that what they read would rather confuse patients, and one in four even discourages the search.

I beg your pardon? In a world where a sea of health news and disease reports, guidebook portals and trade pages are just a click away? In the past, at least for me, there was only one medium: the thick disease book of my mother, a guidebook that knew how to classify the nips and complaints of the whole family. I gave myself to the fable as a twelve-year-old with pleasant scare, black and white except for a few colored pages with photos of mumps, measles and rubella rashes, children with black bars in front of the eyes, a maximum of two pages per illness.

Today we wage a defensive battle against the virtual flood of our lives through news, opinions and information. The keyword "headache" delivers seven million hits in 0.35 seconds on the net. "Flu"? 17 million in 0.37 seconds. Nine out of ten doctors say they are being approached daily by patients for new medical knowledge, and 98 percent are convinced that self-information has increased over the past five years. After all, just over 40 percent are also pleased about the interest of the investigating patient.

Most patients are on the trail of their illness

That's what they ought to do, explains Jan Böcken, who works on the subject of patient care at the Bertelsmann Stiftung. "The informed patient is ideal and helps to improve the therapy." In fact, patients with know-how are more reliable in their treatment. "Studies show that people with more health knowledge can recover faster and do more for the prevention of disease," said Böcken. And after all, every fifth doctor in the study mentioned that patients would come in due to self-search in a timely manner in the practice. A US study of patients with pancreatic cancer tracked their Internet searches and lo and behold - most were on the trail of their disease.

What annoys doctors then? If the god knows in white a spike from the crown, if we know technical terms, blood values can classify or new scientific data from the purse pull? Are they possibly jealous if almost everyone is the omnipresent Dr. Google as the first and last instance consulted, as documented by a recent study by the company Pascoe Naturmedizin? "The Internet is changing the relationship between the doctor and the patient, and patients are now able to independently inform themselves and form their own opinions," says doctor Anja Bittner from Dresden, who is working with her company Verbicur for better communication between Strengthens doctor and patient.

"Many users only look at the first ten hits"

In a US study, physicians said that informed patients made them feel more in doubt about their authority. This strains the relationship of trust. Forty-five percent of the physicians in the Bertelsmann study also fear that the Internet creates inappropriate expectations and demands, just less so that the mixture of true and false only hampers them. Sure: "Often, the Internet spits out unspecific information that uses little," confirms Anja Bittner. "In the worst case, you even get informed in practice." In contrast, the doctor must then argue.

One can understand that he would rather do without it. Also because the internet is so fallible. "Most users only look at the first ten hits.But they are not sorted by content quality, "notes Klaus Koch of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) Google Optimized means neither true nor true Is the information obsolete, filtered, commercial or other interests behind it? Especially in the field of health, the marketing budgets of the companies are often huge, many websites that serve as a guide, are funded by pharmaceutical companies.As another example, Koch calls the vaccination discussion: "As predominate Internet sites that do not scientifically justify one-sided and the Overemphasise risks. "And - well, the measles are back. Scientifically speaking: madness.

The web is sicker than the reality

Incidentally, the lack of classification is also a reason why my husband forbids me the visit by tablet in the evening. Because he can not sleep anymore. Because I no longer sleep, but toss me and the worries in bed and now and then. Especially since the network is sicker than the reality. All pure media psychology: "Only bad news are good news" - only negative messages get attention. Who writes about a preparation that has helped a great deal, about a Zipperlein that was really just such? Above all, bad experiences with doctors, medicines, life-threatening illnesses end up in the net. The internet can even aggravate complaints, like me on the sofa. "The information can act like a Nocebo - a tablet, in which you can feel a negative effect, without an active ingredient in the game," said doctor Bittner.

So one should better pay attention to the risks and side effects of "healthy googling". And the doctors? "In view of the flood of information, you should be the pilots who help with good sources," says Koch. But there is a need to catch up. Doctors usually do not know how patients are informed, and rather rarely have reputable, yet layman-friendly pages on the web they can refer to.

So? Dear doctors, take us more seriously. Take the Internet seriously. Give patients more writing for the home that goes beyond advertising. I vow to do so, dr. Google's inspirations to be put to the acid test. "It also helps to make it clear that the doctor still has the better technical knowledge and can classify things better, no matter how well you have researched," said Bittner. Or, as a good friend says, who is severely ill: "I can not make up my studies in oncology, in the end I have to trust the doctor."

For dealing with Dr. med. Google

Those who follow these rules will be better able to cope with health information online

Never simply enter symptoms: This results in too many hits and thus too many wrong tracks - one searches for the needle in a haystack. Sometimes a search actually makes sense only after the doctor's visit.
To remain suspicious: Non-commercial portals based on proven ("evidence-based") medical knowledge (such as www.patienten-information.de, www.gesundheitsinformation.de and www.krebsinformationsdienst.de) are the absolute exception in the internet. You always have to be suspicious: even if physicians are the authors, it is not sure how current their information level is, what opinions, what knowledge is and whether they speak out in the service of a pharmaceutical company. Because this is so difficult to penetrate, there are now seals of approval for health websites in the network, such as the Action Forum Health Information System (Afgis) and the Swiss Foundation "Health on the Net" (HON), which guarantee seriousness. But even without a seal, one should question their most important quality criteria: Who is the provider? What interest is he pursuing? Are the authors and sources reputable and qualified? Is the offer up to date, is the release date called? What financial interests are behind it? And: are advertising and content separate?
Avoid general portals: If you are looking for information on, for example, gynecological or internal medical illness, then look better on the pages of the respective professional societies than on general portals. For the current state of therapy, the guidelines of the professional societies are interesting. 173 specialist societies are organized at www.awmf.org/leitlinien.html.
To assess yourself correctly: You are more of a hypochondriac? If so, forbid you to search. Better go straight to the doctor and speak directly, that you are rather anxious.