engl202pflanzer

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=109&sid=5c45f266-cedc-4a0f-96fb-e5f4e4650608%40sessionmgr7

http://pilot.passhe.edu:8001/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=27&ti=1,27&Search%5FArg=internet%20medicine&SL=None&Search%5FCode=FT%2A&CNT=50&PID=wRsUKYlbzSP4SNITvZEWO&SEQ=20070725162049&SID=9

My survey for my online class.
1. Do you ever use the internet to get information about medical symptoms
or conditions?
Yes-6
No-0
2. How frequently have you used these sites?
2-3 times a month
8-9 times this week
Once a month
Rarely
Not very often
About once a month
3. Have you used sites other than WebMD.com? Which ones?
Yahoo Questions and Ask.com
Google
WebMD
I don’t know
4. Do you use this information before, after or instead of going to the
Doctor?
Before-5
After-3
Instead-0
5. How accurate would you say the information you got was?
Very Accurate-2
Pretty Accurate-3
Not Very Accurate-
Varies-1
6. Do you believe that it is a good thing that this information is available for everybody or do you believe that doctors should provide any medical information to patients?
Good-5
Not Good-
Both- 1
7. Which age bracket do you belong to?
A. 18-24 B. 25-30 C. 30-39 D. 40 and up
A-5
B-
C-
D-1
8. If you have kids, do you use these sites for yourself or for your kids or both?
Both-2
No Kids-3
Not for kids-1
9. Any other information you think might be important or interesting for me to use for my paper?
“I think the websites are good for general information. They keep me from calling the doctor every hour and let know when it is time to call a doctor. They shouldnt be used in place of a doctor but more of a guide on when a doctor is needed”
“I don’t depend on websites like this but i like to use them if I think something is wrong with me, like i jsut had kidney stones and I looked up the symptoms before I went to the doctors which were the ones who confirmed the stones. I would never use these sites instead of a doctor, just as a guideline or help to general questions.”
“I like to use the internet to research medications as well.”

Source #2— 10 Most Popular Health Sites. Yahoo internet life.

This article lists and briefly describes the 10 most popular websites for health information. It doesn’t critique these sites at all but I plan on using this article in my paper to know what web pages people use. I will probably only research the top 3 or so, but I may look at more than that.
1- WebMD
2- Ediets.com
3- Ivillagehealth.com
4- Drugstore.com
5- Thebreastcancersite.com
6- Health.msn.com
7- Drkoop.com
8- Healthandage.com
9- Ivillagehealth.com/quiz
10- Mayoclinic.com

Source #1- Health Information on the internet: Accessibility, Quality and Readability in English and Spanish

A group of doctors wrote an article for the Journal of the American Medical Association that describes their study into the health information available on the internet. This article states that 60 million American citizens looked up medical information on the internet in 2000. It also says that studies show that more that 70% of internet users report that the health information they find on the internet effects their choices about treatment for conditions. In their study they looked at four common conditions that people may search about, breast cancer, obesity, childhood asthma, and depression. For these four conditions they asked 4 questions. “What are consumers likely to find when they search online about these conditions? How comprehensive is the information? How accurate is it? At what grade reading level is the material presented?” They did this research for both Spanish and English websites.

QUOTES TAKEN DIRECTLY OUT OF ARTICLE—- NOT NECESSARILY WHAT I’LL USE
“On English-language Web sites, the mean percentage of covered clinical elements for which the text was completely correct was 91% for breast cancer, 84% for childhood asthma, 75% for depression, and 86% for obesity. In Spanish, the mean percentages were 96% for breast cancer, 53% for childhood asthma, 63% for depression, and 68% for obesity.”
“For English-language Web sites, the average reading level was collegiate (mean [SD] grade, 13.2 [2.1]) and ranged from 10th grade to graduate school level (Figure 2). For the Spanish-language Web sites, the average reading level was at 10th grade (mean [SD] grade, 9.9 [2.5]) and ranged from grades 7 to 13 (Figure 2). The mean grade reading level for the English-language Web sites was significantly higher than for Spanish-language Web sites (P<.003).”
“The reading level of most Web-based material is quite high. All of the English-language sites had material that required at least a 10th-grade reading level, and more than half of the sites presented material at the college level. Although 1 Spanish-language site presented material at the elementary school level, all others required at least a ninth-grade reading level. According to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, 92 million adults in the United States—almost 48% of the population—and more than 75% of current welfare recipients have low or very low reading skills.51 Thus, even if wider access to computer technologies narrowed the digital divide, the online health information currently available would be difficult for many people to understand.”

I decided to write a short survey to ask the students in my online class. I thought about trying to email a few local doctors to find out thier opinions, but being that I don’t have unlimited time I figured that asking questions of my classmates would work better. Here is a copy of my questions.

I am currently in a research writing class, and my professor told us to do some primary research for our paper. I am writing about the effects of WebMD and similar sites on the medical community. I was wondering if I could possibly get all (some) of you to answer a short survey.

1. Do you ever use the internet to get information about medical symptoms or conditions?

2. How frequently have you used these sites?

3. Have you used sites other than WebMD.com? Which ones?

4. Do you use this information before, after or instead of going to the doctor?

5. How accurate would you say the information you got was?

6. Do you believe that it is a good thing that this information is available for everybody or do you believe that doctors should provide any medical information to patients?

7. Which age bracket do you belong to?
A. 18-24 B. 25-30 C. 30-39 D. 40 and up

8. If you have kids, do you use these sites for yourself or for your kids or both?

9. Any other information you think might be important or intresting for me to use for my paper?

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

Melissa Pflanzer
E-Health and it’s effects on real health

Theme: Information on the internet

Broad Topic: Medical Field and the internet

Concept Streams:
WebMD— how reliable is the information
Google— what comes up when you type in symptoms

Relevant Conversations/ Sources:
Doctor’s Opinions- American Medical Association (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1905.html)
Patient’s Opinions
Insurance Companies Opinions
Psychologists- American Psychology Association–
WebMD— disclaimer
Pharmoceutical companies

Working Research Questions:
— How has the internet affected the Medical field and how doctors work?
— How has the internet changed the kinds of patients we are?
— Has the internet been helpful or harmful in the field of medicine?
— Is it good that patients can search for the symptoms they have?
— Has the amount of information on the internet increased or decreased the number of appointments people have?
— Has the availability of medical information on the internet caused an increase in hypochondriacs?
— Has the availability of medical information on the internet caused people to believe that their symptoms are less/more severe then they actually are?
— Do People use the internet as a second opinion, first opinion or just for further information?
— Is it helpful for doctors to have the internet to research information they do not already know?

Focused Research Question:
To what extent have websites like WebMD.com helped and/or harmed patients in the search for information about medical symptoms and conditions? How is this effect different from more traditional forms of information for patients?

Working Introduction

Imagine this, you wake up on a Monday morning, the day of a huge exam in your first class. You had been up until 3 studying, but went to bed pretty confident in your knowledge. Now the alarm is going off, it is time to get up and go. But as you open your eyes you realize that your vision is blurry. If you have had previous experience with migraines, you would probably assume that this is what it was. You would realize that your hand(s) will likely start tingling shortly followed by a horrible headache in which you are very light sensitive.
If this was your first experience with a migraine this can be very scary. To suddenly have blurry vision with blind spots definitely strikes one as serious. As you think about it you come up with four options. First, you could call your mom, she might know… but she is probably still sleeping, and you don’t want to concern her. The second option is to go to the doctor, but the health center doesn’t open until 9, and your class is at 8. The third option is to go to the emergency room, but that is expensive, and you would still miss class. The final option is to look online, see what it says.
You decide that the internet option makes the most sense. You walk through your apartment to the computer, and go to www.webmd.com, you have heard that it is a good site for looking up information. As you pull up the site you click on the “Symptom checker” option, then start now. It asks for your age range and sex. Then it shows a body, telling you to click where you have symptoms. You zoom into the eyes and tell it that you have blurred vision. When you answer the questions it asks you get a list of 20 conditions, which vary from nearsightedness to epilepsy to terms that are way to scientific for the average person. By now you have tingling in your arm. So you add this to the symptoms. Now there are 20 conditions, some are the same, some different. Now you add headache, as your head has started hurting. Again there are 20 conditions listed, the fourth in the line is Migraine Headache.
You decide that your symptoms are probably not bad enough to require going to the ER, but you email your professor to tell him you are not feeling well and will go to the health center and bring an excuse during the next class session.

Rough Outline
I. Introduction Paragraphs-
II. Major Sources of medical information
A. WebMD
B. Google
C. American Medical Association Website
D. Other smaller sites
III. Comparison between internet sources and traditional sources of information
IV. Doctor’s opinions of occurances
V. Patient’s opinions
VI. Reliability of information
VII. Legality/ Liability of information
A. Disclaimers
B. Statements saying “seek medical treatment”
VIII. Effects on the pharmoceutical companies
IX. Overall effects of internet information
X. Conclusion.

Bibliography

10 Most Popular Health Sites. Yahoo! Internet Life. 7.9 (2001): 84. 25 July 2007 .

1997 Guide to Health Care Resources on the Internet. New York, NY: Faulkner & Gray’s Healthcare Information Center, 1996.

Appleyard, Richard. “Cyberhealth.” .

Berland, Gretchen K., et al. “Health Information on the Internet: Accessibility, Quality, and Readability in English and Spanish.” JAMA. 285.20 (2001): 2612-2621. 25 July 2007 .

Eysenbach, Gunther, John Powell, Oliver Kuss, and Eun-Ryoung Sa. “Empirical Studies Assessing the Quality of Health Information for Consumers on the World Wide Web: A Systematic Review.” JAMA. 287.20 (2002): 2691-2700. 25 July 2007 .

Flynn, Mary Kathleen. “FINDING A DIGITAL DIAGNOSIS.” U.S. News & World Report. 139.21 (2005): 62. 25 July 2007 .

Harrison, Jeffrey. “The Role of E-health in the Changing Health Care Environment.” Nursing Economics. 25.3 .

Karmel, Miriam. “World Wide Medicine: When Patients Surf the Web.” EyeNet Magazine. (2007).

RX Internet Pros & Cons. Santa Cruz Small Business Monthly. 2.4 (2006). .

Terry, Nicolas. “Access vs Quality Assurance: the e-Health Conundrum.” JAMA. 285.6 (2001): 807. 25 July 2007 .

http://www.abc.net.au/health/features/elixir/
http://www.illumirate.com/opinions.cfm?cat_id=434817&item_id=16393
http://www.spine-health.com/about/press.html
http://www.jmir.org/2000/2/e9/

Theme: Information on the internet

Broad Topic: Medical Field and the internet

Concept Streams:
WebMD— how reliable is the information
Google— what comes up when you type in symptoms

Relevant Conversations/ Sources:
Doctor’s Opinions- American Medical Association (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1905.html)
Patient’s Opinions
Insurance Companies Opinions
Psychologists- American Psychology Association–
WebMD— disclaimer
Pharmoceutical companies

Working Research Questions:
— How has the internet affected the Medical field and how doctors work?
— How has the internet changed the kinds of patients we are?
— Has the internet been helpful or harmful in the field of medicine?
— Is it good that patients can search for the symptoms they have?
— Has the amount of information on the internet increased or decreased the number of appointments people have?
— Has the availability of medical information on the internet caused an increase in hypochondriacs?
— Has the availability of medical information on the internet caused people to believe that their symptoms are less/more severe then they actually are?
— Do People use the internet as a second opinion, first opinion or just for further information?
— Is it helpful for doctors to have the internet to research information they do not already know?

Focused Research Question:
To what extent have websites like WebMD.com helped and/or harmed patients and doctors in the search for information about medical symptoms and conditions?

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/551712_2
http://www.scsmallbiz.com/sections.php?ID=104&Issue=11&Section=Computing
http://www.aao.org/publications/eyenet/200707/eyeoneyemedicine.cfm
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f01/web1/aryani.html
http://medir.ohsu.edu/~appleyar/presentations_html/CWIV_Cyberhealth.lrg.pdf

One thing that I have thought about that I am curious about is whether children are actually more likely to run into child molesters on the internet or in real life. The news stresses the “internet predators” and talks about how many there are. I wonder if there are actually more perverts that try to intice children now or if children were in more danger when they would run around the neighborhood and going to the park alone. I suspect that the internet has just provided another avenue for those activities, but they aren’t really much more common.

After reading the article I had to spend a moment to think. I really think that there should be limits to the length of time that authors and author’s families should recieve royalties for thier work. I don’t think that all media should be free, that we shouldn’t have to pay to listen to music or read a book, but the amount that is charged for some things because of the copyright laws is ridiculous. For example, when I had my Humanities Lit class we had to buy a Pro-Packet book that had alot of the stories, poems etc that we needed to read. It was like 21 dollars though because of the royalties owed to the authors’ families.

As I read the article I really liked the idea they stated that Fisher had. He suggested that media that can possibly be traded over the internet be put into a system, that is monitored to allow for the proper amounts of payments to go to each author, artist etc. He suggested using taxes on the equipment that someone may use to copy this information. I think that this was a really good idea because then the people that would be using the service would be the ones paying for it, a little bit at a time. This would allow the artists to be paid for thier work, while not charging the consumers a dollar per song to download songs to your I-Pod. The more CD’s that you want to burn off of the internet, or movies you want to recreate the more you will wind up contributing. I realize that there are probably alot of kinks in the plan that would need to be worked out before this system would be able to be implemented, but I believe it would be the fairest balance for the consumers and the artists.