farmdoc's blog post number 145

Back in the 1960s when I was a medical student, as soon as I learned about a disease, I thought I had its symptoms. This well-known phenomenon was first described a century ago – by Boston neurologist Dr George Lincoln Walton in his 1908 book Why Worry? Currently it’s debatable – or at least uncertain – if it’s mere health hyperawareness (coined medical students' disease or medicalstudentitis), or hypochondria. Hypochondria is defined as excessive preoccupation with, or worry about, having a serious illness. And so to the topic of cyberchondria. Derived from combining cyber- and hypochondria, cyberchondria is unrelated to hypochondria. Rather, it’s a label for using the internet to gather information on health or healthcare, for personal use. And unlike hypochondria, it’s not pejorative. A survey reported in the current Australian Health Review revealed that cyberchondria is not age- related, it’s commoner in higher socioeconomic groups because of greater internet access, and over 70% of cyberchondriacs didn’t bring online health information to their doctors. Of course there’s nothing illegal or wrong – and there’s much right – about collecting information from the internet. The important issues are ensuring the accuracy and currency of the information, and taking care when using often quite general information in specific individual settings. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The question is whether more knowledge is a more, or less, dangerous thing.