While the Internet provides a wealth of knowledge to netizens, the value of much online information is less than a hill of beans. The Harvard Medical School made that discovery in a new health study that tested online symptom checkers for medical conditions, used when people's bodies or minds are showing signs of illnesses or diseases. Although such health checkers can provide helpful information and a hope of diagnosis, the Harvard study revealed they are also frequently wrong.
The public is becoming more interested in self-diagnosis, resulting in more searchers via Internet symptom checkers. Ateev Mehrotra was the study's lead author.
He said that his research team wanted to learn if surfers were receiving good advice. The Harvard study was the world's first large-scale study that examined how accurate online diagnosis websites are.
The majority of the online symptom checkers were hosted by hospitals, med schools, insurance companies, and government agencies. Users first answered multiple choice questions and questionnaires to input their symptoms.
The software algorithm then listed possible diseases. Users of the health checkers could then suggest getting medical help or just resting at home.
Researchers tested the top 23 symptoms checker websites in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, according to the Daily Times Gazette. Then the Harvard team listed symptoms of 45 medical cases, of which 26 were common diagnoses and 19 were uncommon, according to Beacon Transcript.
Data revealed that there is just a one-in-three likelihood that the web tool is correct in its first try. However, success rates improved with time. They spiked to 51 percent when the right diagnoses were in the top three attempts, and rose to 58 percent within 20 tries.
The co-authors shared that symptom-checking sites often provide a hope of diagnosis. However, the web-based tools are often incorrect and too cautious.
Mehrotra recommends use of the online symptom checkers. However, they should be used to collect information about people's health conditions, but not as the "final word."