Cyberchondria

Ben Davidson Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science Medical diagnostic websites from the World Wide Web such as WebMD (http://webmd.com) and Your Diagnostic (http://yourdiagnostic.com) have the potential to give worthwhile information pertaining to the severity of illnesses and their symptoms. On the contrary, when the Internet is used as a diagnostic tool, the user is often led to the wrong conclusions and is given false medical anxiety. The term cyberchondriac describes people who have unsubstantiated concerns about common symptoms due to the Internet (Horvitz & White, 2008). Fox (2006) reported that eight out of every ten, or 113 million, Internet users search for health-related topics. Of these people, 66% started their search with a search engine and approximately 22% were either confused or frightened by the information they found. Because search engines produce an equal number of results for common and rare recognized medical illnesses, many people are lead to the wrong information. It is clear that cybercondriacs are misinformed and falsely anxious. Several root causes of cyberchondria aid in the spread and impact of the fear. Throughout history, people have been described as having hypochondria, or fear about illness due to information relating to symptoms of illnesses. In modern times, the widespread availability of books and the abundance of use of the Internet have increased the information available to an individual (Venkatesh, 2008). With increased knowledge of disease and illness, it is only natural that the anxiety of hypochondriacs increases. In addition, the economy affects people who are anxious about illnesses. With increasingly worsening world economy, fewer people are able to afford health insurance; therefore, less people are inclined to visit their doctors office because they believe self-treatment is more affordable than the treatment of a doctor. Also, many people distrust the aid of a medical professional, and feel that it is safer to self-diagnose. Cyberchondriacs who misdiagnose themselves think they have serious illnesses that require the aid of specialty professionals; however, they often revert to self-treatment due to the heightened expense of specialty professionals (Markoff, 2008). It is evident that increased availability of knowledge and the weakening economy are root causes of cyberchondria. Over the past several years, the negative effects of cyberchondria have become apparent. The conditions known as cyberchondria and hypochondria cause people to become anxious about their health. In a typical case, a person with these conditions will find information relevant to a symptom they have, find an associated illness (which is oftentimes severe because he or she does not have the medical background to assess his or her symptoms), convince themselves they have other symptoms coupled with the illness, and then either attempt self-treatment (67%) or contact a doctor (33%) (Fox, 2006). In many other cases, people will not show any symptoms, but still become fearful of the environment because they want to resist the infection of an illness. In either case, cyberchondria leads to severe anxiety and/or depression, which can worsen the condition of any symptoms that somebody might have. In fact, approximately 39% of Internet users admitted that they have been concerned about having a serious medical condition based on [their] observation of symptoms when no symptoms were present (Horvitz & White, 2008). For example, if a typical cyberchondriac had chest pain, he or she would first research their

symptom in a search engine, find that the most common related cause was heart attack (37%, as opposed to heartburn, 28%, and indigestion, 35%), and then he or she would be likely to attempt self-treatment that may worsen the initial condition. Information that finds its way onto the web is so unfiltered that it can be truly dangerous. In addition, 75% of internet health seekers do not assess the validity of the websites where they find information. Therefore, due to the combination of unfiltered Internet and the lack of validity assessments, cyberchondriacs can become anxious over false information (Fox. 2008). Anxiety, depression, self-treatment, and unverified information are all negative attributes of the behavior of cyberchondriacs. Distinct from hypochondria and cyberchondria, Mnchausen syndrome causes similar problems for hospital staff. A syndrome characterized by the falsification of symptoms in order to draw medical attention and treatment, Mnchausen syndrome, first proposed by Richard Asher in 1951, satisfies the psychological and physical needs of a patient. A very knowledgeable individual with the syndrome can falsify symptoms ranging anywhere between muscle pain to death to justify multiple expensive operations. In all three cases, the medical facility loses valuable time, money, and resources. In contrast, hypochondriacs and cyberchondriacs believe they have a disease, while individuals with Mnchausen syndrome are aware that they are falsifying their symptoms (Huffman, 2003). Although the information on the World Wide Web can be very useful to give meaningful information to users across the world, it is not an accurate diagnostic tool. Fueled by factors such as the dwindling economy and the availability of information, cyberchondria is clearly rampant in our society. Both cyberchondria, which causes severe anxiousness and depression, as well as promoting self treatment, as well as Mnchausen syndrome, which causes the need for constant medical attention, use needed time, money, and resources of medical facilities.

Literature Cited Fox, S. (2006). Online Health search 2006. Pew internet & American Life Project. Retrieved January 12, 2009, from http://pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Online_Health_2006.pdf. Horvitz, E. and White, R. (2008). Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search. Retrieved January 12, 2009, from Microsoft Research database (MSRTR-2008-177). Huffman, J. C. (2003). The diagnosis and treatment of Munchausens syndrome [Electronic Version]. General Hospital Psychiatry. 25 (5). 358-363. Markoff, J. (2008). Microsoft Examines Causes of Cyberchondria. Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/technology/internet/ 25symptoms.html Venkatesh, A. (2008). Internet. Retrieved January 12, 2008, from AccessScience@McGraw Hill database (10.1036/1097-8542.757467).