Self-diagnosis
Due to self-diagnoses' varied accuracy, public attitudes toward self-diagnosis include denials of its legitimacy and applause of its ability to promote healthcare access and allow for individuals to find solidarity and support.
[1][2] Furthermore, external influences such as marketing, social media trends, societal stigma around disease, and to which demographic population one belongs greatly affect the use of self-diagnosis.
Self-diagnosis is prone to error and may be potentially dangerous if inappropriate decisions are made, which can stem from broad or inaccurately applied symptoms as well as confirmation bias.
Such self-diagnoses are complicated by multiple factors, such as direct-to-consumer marketing of medications, which is widely criticized for promoting inappropriate self-diagnosis.
Pharmaceutical companies have put a considerable amount of funding into marketing campaigns, which a 2007 study linked to an increase in seemingly healthy patients seeking out more diagnostic screenings.
[13] Often, these campaigns are proliferated through the creation of unbranded websites with checklists of ambiguous and broad symptoms that are stated to be representative of a specific disease,[13] which has caused the American Medical Association (AMA) to warn doctors of this form of direct-to-consumer advertising.
[12][13] Ebling assesses that naming the disease gives it an increased authenticity that merits a medical solution, which the websites present to be a specific, branded drug, all without appearing to be obviously sponsored.
[11] Doctors further criticize these campaigns for being misleading because they also often use language that celebrates the agency a patient is assuming over themselves by gaining this knowledge and seeking out a solution.
[11][13] These ambiguous symptom checklists have been mirrored by advertisements by medical brands on TikTok that present their content as traditional influencer posts, then asking users if they exhibit any symptoms that could be applied to various conditions, such as “Are you nervous?” From this point, like the websites, these advertisements encourage users to empower themselves to address a specific condition they might have by using the company's services, which may include consultations or specific medications.
Ebling states that Eli Lilly sought out doctors who would support the designation of PMDD as its own disease, resulting in FDA recognition of the condition and approval of Sarafem to serve as a treatment for it.
Despite the fact that doctors warn that they cannot necessarily conclusively diagnose a condition nor encapsulate a disease's full complexity, the industry creating these tests is growing in profitability.
A number of applications receive monetary returns for acting as referrals to health insurance companies, doctor's offices, and pharmacies.
[2] Communities for health problems not necessarily recognized by the medical establishment also exist online with the same purpose of providing support and understanding.
[2] Additionally, social media users argue that the prevalence of self-diagnosis has promoted an open discussion surrounding mental health, working to remove the stigmas from various diseases and conditions.
[16] Experts have criticized the creators of such medical apps as promoting a false sense of credibility in order to increase the number of downloads.
For example, these apps will often use widely recognized medical symbols such as the red cross or a stethoscope on their thumbnails and diagnostic pages, as well as emphasize terms such as "algorithm", "sensors", and "computer" in the diagnosis process to convey a sense of scientific objectivity.
The operational mechanism of CSCs is a text-to-text system, where the chatbot asks a series of health-related questions in order to determine a diagnosis.
[17] Some online self-diagnosis tests state that common, broad symptoms, like anxiety and mood swings, are definite indicators of specific disorders, causing social media users to report such posts for inaccuracy.
[17] Journalist and author Doreen Dodgen-Magee considers self-diagnosis tests to work due to confirmation bias, which was witnessed when there was a statistical increase in the number of teenage girls approaching their doctors with a concern they had Tourette syndrome after multiple videos naming broad symptoms as signs of Tourettes went viral on TikTok.
[1] Ani and Bazargan[23] from the Department of Family Medicine and Research Centers in Minority Institutions found that accessibility, affordability, continuity of medical care, and financial strains are the primary factors that determine whether patients choose to use self-diagnose or formal diagnoses.
Samantha Artiga[27] from the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that when statistics were corrected to account for differences in age by race and ethnicity, it became clear that Black, Hispanic, AIAN, and NHOPI persons had the highest rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths in compared to white people.
The Conversation[28] highlights how using internet resources to evaluate COVID-19 symptoms and self-triage was promoted during the pandemic, exhibiting how online health information gained new significance.
The Camber Mental Health Organization[30] also notes the potential danger of online self-diagnosis, indicating that influencers without proper license offer public advice that can further jeopardize the vulnerable demographics.
The study posits that this frequent usage may explain why the younger population had more experience searching for high-quality websites and receiving accurate diagnoses.
