Bank on It | Cyberchondria: the dangers of self-diagnosis

The winter season is upon us here at Penn, and with it comes a steady stream of illnesses. When we are overtaken by coughs and sneezes many of us do the same thing — consult the internet.

Unfortunately, when we have diagnoses waiting at the touch of a button, some may come down with a worse malady — cyberchondria.

Hypochondria is a condition where a person worries excessively about exaggerated symptoms over a large period of time. Cyberchondria is an unofficial term used to describe the ill-fated union between hypochondriacs and the internet.

Since the early 2000s, a large number of people have begun to use health information websites like WebMD. What may come as a surprise is that people in the college-age bracket make up the largest demographic of WebMD users, according to estimates by Quantcast.com — a web analytics service.

Penn is no exception to the rule. 60 percent of the student body uses WebMD, according to the 2010 Student Health Survey. Although many factors contribute to its use, it is likely that our technological prowess and lack of money make a free internet doctor seem like a pretty good idea.

So where do Penn students land in the world of cyber docs?

Kristin Kaiser, a College senior, admitted that she uses WebMD “whenever she is ill” and that “most [diagnoses] are ridiculous but are sometimes helpful.” Many other students also responded similarly, frequently using WebMD when they felt ill. Unfortunately many of these students never saw a doctor and did not intend to.

If students continuously use sources like WebMD to self-diagnose, they are all prone to cyberchondria. After all, we often hear our peers complaining about their illnesses only to later admit that they haven’t actually seen a doctor. And when they pick their illness, how often is it the common cold? It’s always something like bronchitis or pneumonia or cancer. Since when does picking an ailment off a list of symptoms qualify as a diagnosis?

Consulting WebMD might not always be a bad thing. Amanda Swain, a physician at Student Health Services, said that it’s “good to have patients motivated to educate themselves.”

However, these health-information websites work best when we are only trying to gain information. Sallyann Bowman, the deputy director of SHS, said that the use of sites like WebMD sometimes brings in students “convinced that they had the worst condition on the differential list.”

This conviction of having an illness that is undiagnosed can actually be unhelpful to doctors, which “can be detrimental because it leads the patient to believe they shouldn’t report all their symptoms,” Swain said, “and then it also can lead me on the wrong path.”

Our obsession with identifying our ailments can delay the process of getting an accurate diagnosis.

So why is it that we fall prey to cyberchondria? Why do we insist on having the worst disease on the list?

Maybe it is because we, as students, are competitive, and in all the pressure to be number one, we find that surely a common ailment could not detain us — maybe.

Or maybe it’s just because we simply do not have the patience to find out what our sickness is from the doctors themselves.

The list of reasons why we self-diagnose are many, but the result is typically the same. We worry excessively and can often come to the wrong conclusion.

In the end, WebMD and sites like it are a blessing and a curse. When handed facts, we must decide for ourselves whether to be informed or to be convinced.

Sarah Banks is a College sophomore from Okemos, Mich. Her e-mail address is banks@theDP.com. Bank on It appears every other Monday.

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