Search Impact on Patient Behaviour

Data: 29/04/12 · Professional

Let me in this post write a short comment on how is impacting Internet on health decisions.

Health industry is beign affected by consumer and patients behaviours. Searching disease, doctor’s ratings or drug information through Internet is an extended practice:

Source: Google Think Insights

75% of patients research symptoms online before talking to a doctor
Internet is the top resource for health questions & concerns
70% of the patients research again online before starting with a medication prescribed by a doctor
87% go online to gather information: 57% of them read an article/newsletter or report
48% of them search for treatment options
43% of patients do an action on info as registering for a newsletter (21%), 12
53% do more than 3 searches to answer a health question
20% of patients do mobile search (smartphones)
52% did a self-diagnosis
49% started an-over-the counter treatment
55% changed behaviours/lifestyle

All these data provided by Google Think Insights demonstrates how deep is the impact on health behaviours when information is available and free accessible. From this point, I think health related industry will need to adapt their information and behaviour to make it patient-centric.

Want more data?. Here it is:

From the leading US patients social network PatientsLikeMe, nearly 7,000 members from six of the site’s communities (ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, HIV, fibromyalgia and mood disorders) were sent a survey invitation. Of the 1,323 respondents to the invitation, 72 percent said that the site was “very” or “moderately” helpful in informing them about a symptom they were experiencing, and 57 percent found it helpful for understanding the side effects of their treatments.