Why patients rely on web search than manual efforts?

The ever-changing in today’s world and to cope-up with these changes require the help of internet service. Therefore web searching to gather information becomes an integral part f our daily life. Currently, our decision making depends upon the result of web search. Therefore, net surfing is no longer optional, but become mandatory to get a quick view of exploring anything.

Web Searching Vs Manual Efforts

The utmost parameter to live is our health. Besides, every necessary decision to continue today’s life, urban educated patients have started web search to clear their concept about the disease, diagnosis, available treatment options and the details of service centers where the available treatment exists.

The trend to visit “go online” to obtain medical information becomes popular. A United States survey report represented that 52 million adults have used web search (www) to obtain medical or health-related information. More than one lakh health-related Web sites are available for providing different types of medical information. But the reliability of the information is important, specifically in case of health-related issues for decision making.

The motive to share the health information is always focused on some parameters including authenticity, informative, easily accessible and user-friendly. Manual search becomes a traditional method to search for today’s generation have to build up their mindset about the manual search is Manual search Most of the patient shift from manual research to web search due to the following advantages:

• Web search provides current data
• Patients can handle the available data in a more organized way than manual sources
• The accessibility of data is easier to acquire than manual effort
• The difficult term is easy to understand by using another search engine
• The reliability of information can be rechecked by evaluating the bibliography
• The details of author/s and reviewer/s of any health article is accessible in authentic web sites.
• Many restrictive tests need to clear before the web content gets an upper position in the search engines.

All these parameters give the option to the patient to verify the information available in the web search, which may not be possible in case of manual information.

Web searching change the patient dealing approach

Previously, patients were unable to find out disease and treatment-related information due to insufficient accessibility of manual sources. But the discovery of the Internet solves the accessibility issue of the general population. However, some drawbacks of using web searching to obtain the medial and health-related knowledge through the internet are lack of interest to consult with healthcare practitioners.

Patients are seeking web searches to obtain information on a wide variety of topics, including specific diagnoses, the side effects of the prescribed or available treatment. They also search for alternative or complementary medicines as a secondary option to treat their health condition. The majority of patients are doing web searches have confidence that they were accessing reliable information, and most of them do not bother to share the information with their doctors.

The doctor-patient relationship has changed due to a web searching facility. It offers an opportunity for patients to increase their knowledge, become more informed, and increase their involvement in their health care decision-making process. But this creates a new challenge for medical practitioners. Patients try to take advice from internet sources, instead of sharing their health issues directly to the medical experts. Often patients visit the clinic when the health condition turns to severe and complicated state.

The patient needs to understand the reliability of the information available on the internet depends upon its source, but an understanding of every health condition and suitable treatment option for an individual patient can only obtain through practical knowledge. And for that patients always need to visit medical experts to solve their health-related issues at the initial stage only. Web searching is assistance for the patient to obtain an overview of the medical condition, but only medical professionals can show them the right direction to treat the disease.

Doctors also have to understand the changing trend of web searching involvement in the patientcare. It is very difficult to recognize the validity, reliability of information acquired by the patients through web searching. Therefore, caregivers also have an additional task to know the patient’s opinion on the recommended treatment plan for them. This helps to understand the patient’s mindset, which they develop after acquiring the knowledge from web searching about their health condition. Convincing the patient about the treatment plan is crucial for patient compliance and the ultimate treatment outcome.