scholarly journals Comparing Medical Term Usage Patterns of Professionals and Search Engine and Community Question Answering Service Users in Japan: Log Analysis

10.2196/13369 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. e13369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuya Taira ◽  
Taichi Murayama ◽  
Sumio Fujita ◽  
Mikiko Ito ◽  
Kei Kamide ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ulcerative Colitis ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Question Answering ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Weighted Average ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Community Question Answering ◽  
Abnormal Shadow ◽  
Slight Fever

Background Despite increasing opportunities for acquiring health information online, discussion of the specific words used in searches has been limited. Objective The aim of this study was to clarify the medical information gap between medical professionals and the general public in Japan through health information–seeking activities on the internet. Methods Search and posting data were analyzed from one of the most popular domestic search engines in Japan (Yahoo! JAPAN Search) and the most popular Japanese community question answering service (Yahoo! Chiebukuro). We compared the frequency of 100 clinical words appearing in the clinical case reports of medical professionals (clinical frequency) with their frequency in Yahoo! JAPAN Search (search frequency) logs and questions posted to Yahoo! Chiebukuro (question frequency). The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to quantify association patterns among the three information sources. Additionally, user information (gender and age) in the search frequency associated with each registered user was extracted. Results Significant correlations were observed between clinical and search frequencies (r=0.29, P=.003), clinical and question frequencies (r=0.34, P=.001), and search and question frequencies (r=0.57, P<.001). Low-frequency words in clinical frequency (eg, “hypothyroidism,” “ulcerative colitis”) highly ranked in search frequency. Similarly, “pain,” “slight fever,” and “numbness” were highly ranked only in question frequency. The weighted average of ages was 34.5 (SD 2.7) years, and the weighted average of gender (man –1, woman +1) was 0.1 (SD 0.1) in search frequency. Some words were specifically extracted from the search frequency of certain age groups, including “abdominal pain” (10-20 years), “plasma cells” and “inflammatory findings” (20-30 years), “DM” (diabetes mellitus; 30-40 years), “abnormal shadow” and “inflammatory findings” (40-50 years), “hypertension” and “abnormal shadow” (50-60 years), and “lung cancer” and “gastric cancer” (60-70 years). Conclusions Search and question frequencies showed similar tendencies, whereas search and clinical frequencies showed discrepancy. Low-clinical frequency words related to diseases such as “hypothyroidism” and “ulcerative colitis” had high search frequencies, whereas those related to symptoms such as “pain,” “slight fever,” and “numbness” had high question frequencies. Moreover, high search frequency words included designated intractable diseases such as “ulcerative colitis,” which has an incidence of less than 0.1% in the Japanese population. Therefore, it is generally worthwhile to pay attention not only to major diseases but also to minor diseases that users frequently seek information on, and more words will need to be analyzed in the future. Some characteristic words for certain age groups were observed (eg, 20-40 years: “cancer”; 40-60 years: diagnoses and diseases identified in health examinations; 60-70 years: diseases with late adulthood onset and “death”). Overall, this analysis demonstrates that medical professionals as information providers should be aware of clinical frequency, and medical information gaps between professionals and the general public should be bridged.

scholarly journals Comparing Medical Term Usage Patterns of Professionals and Search Engine and Community Question Answering Service Users in Japan: Log Analysis (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuya Taira ◽  
Taichi Murayama ◽  
Sumio Fujita ◽  
Mikiko Ito ◽  
Kei Kamide ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ulcerative Colitis ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Question Answering ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Weighted Average ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Community Question Answering ◽  
Abnormal Shadow ◽  
Slight Fever

BACKGROUND Despite increasing opportunities for acquiring health information online, discussion of the specific words used in searches has been limited. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to clarify the medical information gap between medical professionals and the general public in Japan through health information–seeking activities on the internet. METHODS Search and posting data were analyzed from one of the most popular domestic search engines in Japan (Yahoo! JAPAN Search) and the most popular Japanese community question answering service (Yahoo! Chiebukuro). We compared the frequency of 100 clinical words appearing in the clinical case reports of medical professionals (clinical frequency) with their frequency in Yahoo! JAPAN Search (search frequency) logs and questions posted to Yahoo! Chiebukuro (question frequency). The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to quantify association patterns among the three information sources. Additionally, user information (gender and age) in the search frequency associated with each registered user was extracted. RESULTS Significant correlations were observed between clinical and search frequencies (<i>r</i>=0.29, <i>P</i>=.003), clinical and question frequencies (<i>r</i>=0.34, <i>P</i>=.001), and search and question frequencies (<i>r</i>=0.57, <i>P</i>&lt;.001). Low-frequency words in clinical frequency (eg, “hypothyroidism,” “ulcerative colitis”) highly ranked in search frequency. Similarly, “pain,” “slight fever,” and “numbness” were highly ranked only in question frequency. The weighted average of ages was 34.5 (SD 2.7) years, and the weighted average of gender (man –1, woman +1) was 0.1 (SD 0.1) in search frequency. Some words were specifically extracted from the search frequency of certain age groups, including “abdominal pain” (10-20 years), “plasma cells” and “inflammatory findings” (20-30 years), “DM” (diabetes mellitus; 30-40 years), “abnormal shadow” and “inflammatory findings” (40-50 years), “hypertension” and “abnormal shadow” (50-60 years), and “lung cancer” and “gastric cancer” (60-70 years). CONCLUSIONS Search and question frequencies showed similar tendencies, whereas search and clinical frequencies showed discrepancy. Low-clinical frequency words related to diseases such as “hypothyroidism” and “ulcerative colitis” had high search frequencies, whereas those related to symptoms such as “pain,” “slight fever,” and “numbness” had high question frequencies. Moreover, high search frequency words included designated intractable diseases such as “ulcerative colitis,” which has an incidence of less than 0.1% in the Japanese population. Therefore, it is generally worthwhile to pay attention not only to major diseases but also to minor diseases that users frequently seek information on, and more words will need to be analyzed in the future. Some characteristic words for certain age groups were observed (eg, 20-40 years: “cancer”; 40-60 years: diagnoses and diseases identified in health examinations; 60-70 years: diseases with late adulthood onset and “death”). Overall, this analysis demonstrates that medical professionals as information providers should be aware of clinical frequency, and medical information gaps between professionals and the general public should be bridged.

scholarly journals Education and Consumer Informatics

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (01) ◽  
pp. 72-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Boyer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Health Informatics ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nhs Direct ◽  
Consumer Informatics ◽  
Number Of Individuals

Summary Objectives: To evaluate the extent to which the Internet is accessed for health information and perceived as useful to varying groups classified primarily according to age. Method: Synopsis of the articles on education and consumer health informatics selected for the IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2010. Results: A growing number of individuals are actively seeking health information through a varying selection of resources. The Internet is now seen as a major source of health information alongside with books and other means of paper-based literature. However, it is not clear how the Internet is perceived by varied groups such as those coming from differing age groups. Conclusion: The papers selected attempt to obtain a better understanding about how the public perceives and uses the Internet as an information gathering tool—especially for health information. The papers also explore into how the Internet is used by different groups of people. As all online health information is not of uniform quality, it is important to access and rely on quality medical information. This issue is also dealt with, where the popularity of Wikipedia is measured with the popularity of reliable web sources such as Medline Plus and NHS Direct.

Searching Health Information in Question-Answering Systems

2013 ◽  
pp. 474-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
María-Dolores Olvera-Lobo ◽  
Juncal Gutiérrez-Artacho
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Question Answering ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Restricted Domain ◽  
Retrieval Systems ◽  
Question Answering Systems ◽  
Information Retrieval Systems

Question-Answering Systems (QA Systems) can be viewed as a new alternative to the more familiar Information Retrieval Systems. These systems try to offer detailed, understandable answers to factual questions, in order to retrieve a collection of documents related to a particular search (Jackson & Schilder, 2005). The authors carry out a study to evaluate the quality and efficiency of open- and restricted-domain QA systems as sources for physicians and users in general through one monolingual evaluation and another multilingual. Their objective led them to use definition-type questions in order to evaluate QA systems and determine if they are useful to retrieve medical information. In addition, they analyze and evaluate the results obtained, and identify the source or sources used by the systems and their procedure (Olvera-Lobo & Gutiérrez-Artacho, 2010, 2011).

YouTube as a source of information on rhinosinusitis: the good, the bad and the ugly

2013 ◽  
Vol 127 (8) ◽  
pp. 749-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
T C Biggs ◽  
J H Bird ◽  
P G Harries ◽  
R J Salib
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Patient Information ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Information Resource ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Search Term ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Source Of Information

AbstractObjective:YouTube is an internet-based repository of user-generated content. This study aimed to determine whether YouTube represented a valid and reliable patient information resource for the lay person on the topic of rhinosinusitis.Methods:The study included the first 100 YouTube videos found using the search term ‘sinusitis’. Videos were graded on their ability to inform the lay person on the subject of rhinosinusitis.Results:Forty-five per cent of the videos were deemed to provide some useful information. Fifty-five per cent of the videos contained little or no useful facts, 27 per cent of which contained potentially misleading or even dangerous information. Videos uploaded by medical professionals or those from health information websites contained more useful information than those uploaded by independent users.Conclusion:YouTube appears to be an unreliable resource for accurate and up to date medical information relating to rhinosinusitis. However, it may provide some useful information if mechanisms existed to direct lay people to verifiable and credible sources.

Features of the complex treatment of ulcerative colitis in clinical practice

2020 ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Svetlana Svetlana ◽  
Mikhail Klimentov ◽  
Olga Neganova ◽  
Alina Nazmieva ◽  
Anastasiya Kochurova
Keyword(s):  
Ulcerative Colitis ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Statistical Study ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Length Of Hospital Stay ◽  
Unknown Etiology ◽  
Number Of Patients ◽  
First Republic ◽  
Bowel Diseases ◽  
Inflammatory Bowel

Nowadays there are certain difficulties in the early diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, proceeding with minimal intestinal symptoms. The etiology of the disease remains unclear to this day; there is no exact information about the prevalence of the disease due to the large number of latent forms and the low number of patients seeking medical help. This article presents the results of a retrospective analysis of the incidence of ulcerative colitis in the coloproctology department of the First Republic Clinical Hospital of Izhevsk. The study was conducted to assess the frequency of occurrence and determine the internal picture of ulcerative colitis. To achieve this goal, we selected 34 patients with ulcerative colitis. A statistical study was conducted on the following criteria: gender composition, age groups, forms of the disease, localization, complications, and main complaints. The length of hospital stay often was not more than 20 days. The literature on this pathology was also studied and presented in the form of a theoretical basis, which consisted of the determination and etiology of inflammatory bowel diseases. Due to the unknown etiology, insufficiently studied pathogenesis, difficult differential diagnosis with other intestinal diseases and insufficiently perfect treatment methods, there are a large number of unresolved problems in the field of ulcerative colitis. That is why, in this article we tried to reveal the problem of the features of the course and complex therapy of that disease in clinical practice.

Quality Assessment of Health Information about Scaphoid Fracture in Chinese Websites (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaobin Yin ◽  
Jianguang Ji ◽  
Peng Lu ◽  
Wenyao Zhong ◽  
Liying Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Scaphoid Fracture ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
The Mean

BACKGROUND With online health information becoming increasingly popular among patients and their family members, concerns have been raised about the accuracy from the websites. OBJECTIVE We aimed to evaluate the overall quality of the online information about scaphoid fracture obtained from Chinese websites using the local search engines. METHODS We conducted an online search using the keyword “scaphoid fracture” from the top 5 search engines in China, i.e. Baidu, Shenma, Haosou, Sougou and Bing, and gathered the top ranked websites, which included a total of 120 websites. Among them, 81 websites were kept for further analyses by removing duplicated and unrelated one as well as websites requiring payment. These websites were classified into four categories, including forum/social networks, commercials, academics and physician’s personals. Health information evaluation tool DISCERN and Scaphoid Fracture Specific Content Score (SFSCS) were used to assess the quality of the websites. RESULTS Among the 81 Chinese websites that we studied, commercial websites were the most common one accounting more than half of all websites. The mean DISCERN score of the 81 websites was 25.56 and no website had a score A (ranging from 64 to 80).The mean SFSCS score was 10.04 and no website had a score A (range between 24 and 30). In addition, DISCERN and SFSCS scores from academic and physician’s websites were significantly higher than those from the forum/social networks and commercials. CONCLUSIONS The overall quality of health information obtained from Chinese websites about scaphoid fracture was very low, suggesting that patients and their family members should be aware such deficiency and pay special attentions for the medical information obtained by using the current search engines in China.

scholarly journals Predicting COVID-19 mortality with electronic medical records

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Estiri ◽  
Zachary H. Strasser ◽  
Jeffy G. Klann ◽  
Pourandokht Naseri ◽  
Kavishwar B. Wagholikar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Prognostic Models ◽  
Smoking History ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Gradient Boosting ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
Clinical Expertise ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis study aims to predict death after COVID-19 using only the past medical information routinely collected in electronic health records (EHRs) and to understand the differences in risk factors across age groups. Combining computational methods and clinical expertise, we curated clusters that represent 46 clinical conditions as potential risk factors for death after a COVID-19 infection. We trained age-stratified generalized linear models (GLMs) with component-wise gradient boosting to predict the probability of death based on what we know from the patients before they contracted the virus. Despite only relying on previously documented demographics and comorbidities, our models demonstrated similar performance to other prognostic models that require an assortment of symptoms, laboratory values, and images at the time of diagnosis or during the course of the illness. In general, we found age as the most important predictor of mortality in COVID-19 patients. A history of pneumonia, which is rarely asked in typical epidemiology studies, was one of the most important risk factors for predicting COVID-19 mortality. A history of diabetes with complications and cancer (breast and prostate) were notable risk factors for patients between the ages of 45 and 65 years. In patients aged 65–85 years, diseases that affect the pulmonary system, including interstitial lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and a smoking history, were important for predicting mortality. The ability to compute precise individual-level risk scores exclusively based on the EHR is crucial for effectively allocating and distributing resources, such as prioritizing vaccination among the general population.

The “Be All and End All”? Young People, Online Sexual Health Information, Science and Skepticism

2021 ◽  
pp. 104973232110035
Author(s):  
Adrian Farrugia ◽  
Andrea Waling ◽  
Kiran Pienaar ◽  
Suzanne Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Health Resources ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Sexual Health Information ◽  
Science Society ◽  
Online Sources

In this article, we investigate young people’s trust in online sexual health resources. Analyzing interviews with 37 young people in Australia using Irwin and Michael’s account of science–society relations and Warner’s conceptualization of “publics,” we explore the processes by which they assess the credibility of online sexual health information. We suggest that when seeking medical information, young people opt for traditionally authoritative online sources that purport to offer “facts.” By contrast, when seeking information about relationships or sexual practices, participants indicated a preference for websites presenting “experiences” rather than or as well as “facts.” Regardless of content, however, our participants approached online sexual health information skeptically and used various techniques to appraise its quality and trustworthiness. We argue that these young people are productively understood as a skeptical public of sexual health. We conclude by exploring the implications of our analysis for the provision of online sexual health information.

scholarly journals Cancer patients’ information seeking behavior related to online electronic healthcare records

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 146045822110247
Author(s):  
Hanife Rexhepi ◽  
Isto Huvila ◽  
Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt ◽  
Åsa Cajander
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Information Seeking Behavior ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
Information Horizons ◽  
Health Information Sources

Patients’ online access to their EHR together with the rapid proliferation of medical information on the Internet has changed how patients use information to learn about their health. Patients’ tendency to turn to the Internet to find information about their health and care is well-documented. However, little is known about patients’ information seeking behavior when using online EHRs. By using information horizons as an analytical tool this paper aims to investigate the information behavior of cancer patients who have chosen to view their EHRs (readers) and to those who have not made that option (non-readers). Thirty interviews were conducted with patients. Based on information horizons, it seems that non-reading is associated with living in a narrower information world in comparison to readers. The findings do not suggest that the smallness would be a result of active avoidance of information, or that it would be counterproductive for the patients. The findings suggest, however, that EHRs would benefit from comprehensive linking to authoritative health information sources to help users to understand their contents. In parallel, healthcare professionals should be more aware of their personal role as a key source of health information to those who choose not to read their EHRs.

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