{"id":97187,"date":"2003-07-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-16T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2003\/07\/16\/part-5-hope-validation-and-a-new-sense-of-power\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:14:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:14:24","slug":"part-5-hope-validation-and-a-new-sense-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2003\/07\/16\/part-5-hope-validation-and-a-new-sense-of-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 5. Hope, Validation, and a New Sense of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overall, 73% of health seekers say the Internet has improved the health and medical information and services they receive.<\/h3>\n\n

Overall, 73% of health seekers say the Internet has improved the health and medical information and services they receive. And when we asked in our online survey, \u201cOn the whole, have the online health resources you have used been helpful, harmful, or somewhere in between?\u201d our respondents shared stories about how<\/i> the Internet has been helpful. <\/p>\n\n

While many cited the maxim \u201cknowledge is power,\u201d many more filled in a picture of the Internet adding a strong measure of psychological and emotional benefit to their health care management. One mother of an autistic child wrote, \u201cIt has given me hope for my son. I am not alone anymore.\u201d Another respondent simply stated, \u201cI am less afraid now.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\n

\u201cI feel more in control of my own destiny and less at the mercy of someone who has many other people to take care of and who asks me when he comes in, \u2018What\u00a0are\u00a0you\u00a0here for?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

One mother told how, when she suspected that her daughter had a serious respiratory infection called RSV, she looked it up online and took her to the emergency room. The doctor at the hospital sent them home with a recommendation to call a pediatrician if the girl\u2019s condition did not improve within three days. But the mother was sure her online research was accurate and saw her pediatrician the next day. The girl did have RSV and stopped breathing at the doctor\u2019s office. The mother wrote, \u201cHer life was saved because I followed my instincts and I only followed my instincts because of what I read about RSV on babycenter.com.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Respondents who wrote about the harmful effects of the Internet warned that people must watch out for \u201cquacks\u201d and misinformation, especially on discussion forums. One respondent found it \u201cdepressing\u201d to read about other people\u2019s problems. Another found the medical information online \u201ctoo technical\u201d to understand. Others warned that \u201cmoderation is key\u201d and health seekers should vet any information they find online with a medical professional. \u201cI\u2019ve found both good and bad resources on the web,\u201d wrote one respondent. \u201cThere are a lot of sites that are heavily sponsored by certain pharmaceutical companies and this definitely creates biases. Some sites are simply ill-informed and are passing on incorrect or out of date information.\u201d Another e-patient wrote, \u201cSome websites are very accurate with their medical information. Then there are some that are not. It takes a lot of research to figure out which ones are good, and which ones are selling snake oil.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

In our telephone survey, female health seekers are more likely than male health seekers to say the Internet has improved the health and medical information and services they receive (76% vs. 70%). Further, enthusiasm for the Internet among health seekers was inversely associated with age: The younger an online health seeker, the more likely she is to cite benefits from online information. There are no significant differences between health seekers with various levels of education and income. But it seems that health seekers enjoying high-speed Internet access at home are more likely than dial-up users to cite benefits \u2013 81% vs. 71%.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overall, 73% of health seekers say the Internet has improved the health and medical information and services they receive. Overall, 73% of health seekers say the Internet has improved the health and medical information and services they receive. And when we asked in our online survey, \u201cOn the whole, have the online health resources you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[526],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-97187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","formats-report","research-teams-internet"],"label":false,"post_parent":97149,"word_count":534,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2003\/07\/16\/part-5-hope-validation-and-a-new-sense-of-power\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[{"id":97149,"title":"Internet Health Resources","slug":"internet-health-resources","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2003\/07\/16\/internet-health-resources\/","is_active":false},{"id":97158,"title":"Acknowledgements","slug":"acknowledgements-30","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2003\/07\/16\/acknowledgements-30\/","is_active":false},{"id":97165,"title":"Part 1. 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