上网自诊可靠吗？

随着网络的发展和智能手机的大面积普及，我们当中的很多人在遇到医学问题时会立即拿起手机上网找答案。可是网络上找到的答案一定都是正确的吗？这种“上网自诊”的行为可靠吗？

How are you feeling today? I've got a few aches and pains, but nothing serious. However, when things become more critical, I would normally book myself an appointment with my GP – although by the time I get to see him, the problem will have probably gone away. That's because in the UK at least, we usually have to wait a few days before the doctor can fit us in, and then when we're at the surgery, we have a long wait.

Luckily today, technology has come to our rescue. There are thousands of apps available on our smartphones that can offer first aid advice and allow us to self-diagnose our ailments – ranging from a simple cold or flu to some exotic disease such as dengue fever. And together with the internet, we have a whole encylopedia of medical information at our fingertips.

But is this just what the doctor ordered? Is too much knowledge a good thing? By reading up on an illness, we discover its side-effects and what could happen in a worst-case situation. More worrying is that we give ourselves the wrong diagnosis, and then worry ourselves sick that we're going to die. This health anxiety, fuelled by the internet, is called cyberchondria. It gives sufferers a deep fear of diseases and, according to experts, it's on the rise. Professor Peter Tyrer from Imperial College London, told the BBC: "We find that approximately four out of five of our patients with health anxiety spend literally hours on the internet…. one of the first things we do in treatment is we tell them to stop browsing the internet."

Of course there is no doubt, the world wide web has most of the information we need to diagnose our symptoms but Doctor Tyrer points out "it doesn't have any judgement associated with it." This is why having a consultation with a doctor face-to-face still has its benefits, although a study a few years ago found many GPs felt intimidated by the increasing numbers of web-wise patients arriving in surgeries. One doctor admitted to not being very happy about patients using the internet, saying: "They all seemed to come to me with things I'd never heard of and very often with things which seem rather bizarre or inappropriate."

But Professor Sue Ziebland, from Oxford University, has spent 15 years examining how patients use the internet – including people with cancer. She found that doctors now routinely discuss it as a resource with patients during consultations so it becomes an everyday part of medical conversation. It would seem then that a virtual online doctor can prescribe a dose of useful advice, but technology hasn't replaced the human medical expert just yet.