ArticleThe western journal of emergency medicine2017
What Did You Google? Describing Online Health Information Search Patterns of ED patients and Their Relationship with Final Diagnoses.
Article in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Patient information sources when facing repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm.Journal of vascular surgery · 2020Trial
- Patients' Use of the Internet to Find Reliable Medical Information About Minor Ailments: Vignette-Based Experimental Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Trial
- eHealth literacy in emergency care: a scoping review.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Striving to make the right decision when seeking emergency care: patients' stories of navigating support alternatives in a digital society, a qualitative study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Acceptability of Sharing Internet Browsing History for Cancer Research: Think-Aloud and Interview Study.JMIR cancer · 2026Article
- Accuracy of Dental Symptom Checker Web Application in the Singapore Military Population.International dental journal · 2025Article
- Using online health information for unknown symptoms common among young adults: a qualitative analysis of health-related web pages illustrating the need for numeracy skills, the ability to deal with uncertainty, and the risk of ruling out self-care.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Article
- Lessons to be learned when designing comprehensible patient-oriented online information about temporomandibular disorders.Journal of oral rehabilitation · 2025Article
- The landscape of self-care in Australia: A pharmacy perspective.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2024Article
- When Patients Go to "Dr. Google" Before They Go to the Emergency Department.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2024Observational
- Readability of online health information pertaining to migraine and headache in the UK.British journal of pain · 2023Article
- The diagnosis and management of suspected lymphoma in general practice.European journal of haematology · 2023Review
- The guided use of an e-health tool to strengthen health literacy. A pilot study in a multicultural diabetes population in a primary care clinic in Brussels.PEC innovation · 2022Article
- Global search trends on common vaccine-related information in English on the Internet.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2020Article
- Real-time forecasting of emergency department arrivals using prehospital data.BMC emergency medicine · 2019Article
- Google search histories of patients presenting to an emergency department: an observational study.BMJ open · 2019Observational
- Google searches do not correlate with melanoma incidence in majority English speaking countries.NPJ digital medicine · 2018Article
- Do you look for information about dementia? Knowledge of cognitive impairment in older people among their relatives.Dementia & neuropsychologiaArticle
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionEmergency department (ED) patients' Internet search terms prior to arrival have not been well characterized. The objective of this analysis was to characterize the Internet search terms patients used prior to ED arrival and their relationship to final diagnoses.
methodsWe collected data via survey; participants listed Internet search terms used. Terms were classified into categories: symptom, specific diagnosis, treatment options, anatomy questions, processes of care/physicians, or "other." We categorized each discharge diagnosis as either symptom-based or formal diagnosis. The relationship between the search term and final diagnosis was assigned to one of four categories of search/diagnosis combinations (symptom search/symptom diagnosis, symptom search/formal diagnosis, diagnosis search/symptom diagnosis, diagnosis search/formal diagnosis), representing different "trajectories."
resultsWe approached 889 patients; 723 (81.3%) participated. Of these, 177 (24.5%) used the Internet prior to ED presentation; however, seven had incomplete data (N=170). Mean age was 47 years (standard deviation 18.2); 58.6% were female and 65.7% white. We found that 61.7% searched symptoms and 40.6% searched a specific diagnosis. Most patients received discharge diagnoses of equal specificity as their search terms (34% flat trajectory-symptoms and 34% flat trajectory-diagnosis). Ten percent searched for a diagnosis by name but received a symptom-based discharge diagnosis with less specificity. In contrast, 22% searched for a symptom and received a detailed diagnosis. Among those who searched for a diagnosis by name (n=69) only 29% received the diagnosis that they had searched.
conclusionThe majority of patients used symptoms as the basis of their pre-ED presentation Internet search. When patients did search for specific diagnoses, only a minority searched for the diagnosis they eventually received.
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