In this Correspondence in the March 4, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, a research report shows patients are using the Internet and their physicians appropriately. The report covers 2006-2008.

Patients prefer their doctors more, not less, as their most important information source —even though they do use the Internet, with reservations. This is all good news. This is what patients should be doing.

The research is the work of the “Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to provide an evidentiary basis for practice and policy decisions. Sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, the HINTS program provides data every 2 years from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults 18 years of age or older,” says the Correspondence report.

• Patients still trust their own physicians as their preferred source of information and has increased in the last six years of tracking. This is as it should be.
• Trust in the Internet and other sources as decreased. That also is as it should be. There is way too much junk content available.
• When asked where they first looked for information, respondents said the Internet. This is not a bad thing nor a contradiction of the above finding. Patients start there. They find the basics. They learn the terms. This is what the Internet is great for. Basics. Getting started. Not for self-diagnosis.
• The tendency to rely on sources other than the Internet and physicians has declined.
• When asked about patient activities online, a “small but growing number” of respondents said they used e-mail to communicate directly with their doctors.  This means doctors are finding e-mail workable or they would not be offering it for quick questions and other non-urgent matters.

The New England Journal of Medicine

…”First, despite a decade’s worth of exposure to health information on the Internet, the public’s trust in physiciansb as their preferred source of health information has remained high and, if anything, increased from 2002 to 2008 (odds ratio, 1.29; P<0.05). Conversely, trust in health information from the Internet (odds ratio, 0.74; P<0.05) or from other sources (odds ratio, 0.76; P<0.05) decreased during the same period. Second, when asked where they went first for specific disease information (i.e., cancer), respondents reported going to the Internet first — a tendency that increased over the period of analysis (odds ratio, 1.44; P<0.05). The tendency to rely on sources other than physicians or the Internet for initial information has diminished (odds ratio, 0.43). Third, when Internet users were asked about their activities online, a small but growing number of respondents indicated that they used e-mail to communicate directly with their physicians (odds ratio, 2.51; P<0.05).

Citation: Health Information Trends Survey, National Cancer Institute, March 4, 2010

Citation: Correspondence, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 362, 859-860, March 4, 2010, Number 9