What is cyberchondria?

Say you're having muscle twitches and you enter this symptom into a general Web search. One of the first results that comes up might be ALS, which is a serious degenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Based on the results generated by the search engine, your anxiety causes you t­o focus on researching ALS, derailing you from finding information about a more probable and less harmful cause, such as muscle strain.

­In 2008, a comprehensive study on cyberchondria and search engines was completed by Microsoft researchers Ryen White and Eric Horvitz. White and Horvitz concluded that when a Web search is used to diagnose a symptom, it has the potential to increase the anxieties of users who don't have proper medical training or education. They used the term escalation to describe this increase in anxiety. They also found that search engine results could lead to unnecessary doctor visits, resulting in a waste of time and money.

People tend to focus on the first couple of results rather than looking through all of their options -- or considering that, unlike their physician, Dr. Google doesn't factor in important things like age, health background and family history to the diagnosis.

In one aspect of the study, the researchers surveyed 500 Microsoft employees about their experiences in searching for health-related information on the Web. Nine out of 10 said that a Web search for basic medical information had led to researching a more serious condition. This was a surprising discovery, given that none of the participants described themselves as having excessive health concerns.

Another important finding in this study was that many of the participants seemed to think that search engines ranked the results of their searches according to the likelihood of having a particular disease. In actuality, search engines use mathematical algorithms that rank pages and turn up results based on factors such as how many times a keyword is mentioned, how many clicks a page receives and how many links there are on a page. This creates a situation where worried users click on a page containing information about a rare illness which in turn drives the page rank up, increasing the likelihood that another worried user will come across that page as well.

­White and Horvitz concluded that search engine architects have a responsibility to improve search and navigation procedures to ensure that results related to health inquiries are less anxiety inducing. They acknowledge that this presents "algorithmic challenges" and are pursuing the creation of classifiers that will help indicate when someone is attempting to use a search engine to diagnose a symptom.

In the next section, we'll talk about how taking Internet research to your doctor could affect your doctor-patient relationship.

­Traditionally, the doctor-patient relationship has been one in which the doctor is the main source of information about a patient's diagnosis and treatment. This standard is altered when patients seek to inform themselves via the Internet and wish to act as more of a partner in their own care. The change has been met with some resistance from the physician community, since the information found on the Internet is often unreliable. The Microsoft study found that many participants largely ignored the source of the information they found, focusing instead on the information itself. Information on the Internet isn't regulated, which can create a challenge for doctors treating misinform­ed patients who believe what they read on the Internet instead of their doctor's opinion. In addition, the limitations of insurance can result in a lack of financial compensation to the physician for the additional work that a patient armed with a sheaf of Internet printouts can create.

More progressive physicians believe that the Internet offers opportunities to improve the doctor-patient relationship by having the patient share the responsibility for his or her care. Smarter patients equal better patients. A Harris online poll found that patients who use the Internet to search for information about their health are more likely to ask informed questions and are more likely to comply with their prescribed treatment.

Dr. Jared Dart, an Australian health consultant, offers a suggestion for maintaining a positive doctor-patient relationship: Health professionals should prescribe information as they would medication, in order to keep the Internet a way to manage health information instead of a self-diagnosis tool. In the meantime, here are some tips to increase the likelihood of getting the credible health information that you seek:

For more articles you might like, from Google's algorithm to whether everyone has claustrophobia or not, see the links on the next page.