Impact of the Internet on Arthritis Patients

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Impact of the Internet on Arthritis Patients

Category:  30 Health services research

Hyun A Kim1, Young D Bae1, Yeong I Seo2

1Hallym University Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital, Seoul, Republic of

Korea2Hallym University Hospital, Pyong Chon, Republic of Korea

Presentation Number: 138

Poster Board Number: 138

Keywords: Internet, Arthritis

Although the influence of the online medical information on patients has

been speculated to increase year by year, it has not been studied

systematically in arthritis patients. The number of internet users in South

Korea reaches 27.8 million, ranking the highest in terms of the internet

user rate in the world. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess the

contents of the information about arthritis available on the web sites in

Korea, and 2) to investigate the attitudes of arthritis patients toward

online medical information.

First, a search of the internet was conducted for the key word " arthritis "

using 3 major search engines available in Korea. The " hit " s were scrutinized

after collecting information from the web sites regarding relevance,

authorship, and financial objectives. Second, all the patients visiting our

rheumatology clinic with the diagnosis of either rheumatoid arthritis or

osteoarthritis were given a structured questionnaire about the use of online

information, the opinion on online information, and the impact of it on

various health behavior.

The web search resulted in 128 web sites. 24 (18.8%) were posted by

universities, 8 (6.3%) by non-profit organizations, 31(24%) by profit

industries, and 62(48.4%) by primary care physicians. 76 (59.4%)sites were

considered irrelevant.

A total of 253 patients were interviewed by a trained nurse. The mean age of

the patients was 52.9, and the mean duration of arthritis, 7.4 years. 77% of

patients were female. 166 (66%) patients responded positive to household

subscription to the internet service, and among these, 79 (48%) reported

actively searching for online information about arthritis by themselves.

More than half of these patients represented frequent user, surfing the

internet more than twice a week. Patients' opinion about the contents was as

follows : reliability at least as high as major television and news media,

84.6%, accuracy, 58.7%, help to cope better with illness compared to others,

61.6%. The impact of the web sites on heath behavior of patients was as

follows : more or same trust in physician, 98.9%, better or same impact on

doctor patient relationship, 95.9%. 15.2% visited the doctor posted on the

web, 5.6% purchased the remedy posted on the web, 4.8% quitted the current

treatment due to online information, and 1.0% demanded the treatment posted

on the web to the physician. Only 29.3% of patients reported that they

discuss the information on web sites with their physicians.

In this study population of relatively old arthritis patients, as much as a

third was found to actively search information on the web. Most of the

internet-using patients responded positively about the web contents with

regard to the accuracy, reliability, coping with illness, and doctor-patient

relationship. Although many of the web sites were posted by industries with

a financial purpose, the impact of the internet on the health behavior such

as the purchase of the product posted was found to be relatively small yet.