Does Your Doctor Support Your Use of the Internet as a Decision Support System? - An Australian Perspective

摘要

The Internet is an easy, low cost method to access information worldwide. This has provided the general public with the potential to access medical, pharmaceutical and health information that was previously not readily available to them. With this new access comes concern about information of questionable medical quality and the application of possibly misunderstood health information. This paper presents the results of a preliminary study undertaken in Western Australia, analyzing the use of the Internet as a patient information resource by the major participants in primary community medicine, namely General Practitioners, Pharmacists and the general public. This paper discusses the attitudes and interactions between these parties resulting from access to medical information obtained via Internet. The findings provide an insight into the frequency of presentation by the general public of Internet acquired health management information. The perceived quality and applicability of this information by health care professionals is also discussed. This paper makes recommendations based on the findings.