Tan Sharon Swee-Lin, Goonawardene Nadee
Center for Health Informatics, Department of Information Systems, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
SMU -TCS iCity lab, Singapore Management University, Singapore, Singapore.
J Med Internet Res. 2017 Jan 19;19(1):e9. doi: 10.2196/jmir.5729.
With online health information becoming increasingly popular among patients, concerns have been raised about the impact of patients' Internet health information-seeking behavior on their relationship with physicians. Therefore, it is pertinent to understand the influence of online health information on the patient-physician relationship.
Our objective was to systematically review existing research on patients' Internet health information seeking and its influence on the patient-physician relationship.
We systematically searched PubMed and key medical informatics, information systems, and communication science journals covering the period of 2000 to 2015. Empirical articles that were in English were included. We analyzed the content covering themes in 2 broad categories: factors affecting patients' discussion of online findings during consultations and implications for the patient-physician relationship.
We identified 18 articles that met the inclusion criteria and the quality requirement for the review. The articles revealed barriers, facilitators, and demographic factors that influence patients' disclosure of online health information during consultations and the different mechanisms patients use to reveal these findings. Our review also showed the mechanisms in which online information could influence patients' relationship with their physicians.
Results of this review contribute to the understanding of the patient-physician relationship of Internet-informed patients. Our main findings show that Internet health information seeking can improve the patient-physician relationship depending on whether the patient discusses the information with the physician and on their prior relationship. As patients have better access to health information through the Internet and expect to be more engaged in health decision making, traditional models of the patient-provider relationship and communication strategies must be revisited to adapt to this changing demographic.
随着在线健康信息在患者中越来越受欢迎，人们开始关注患者的互联网健康信息搜索行为对其与医生关系的影响。因此，了解在线健康信息对医患关系的影响是很有必要的。
我们的目的是系统地回顾关于患者互联网健康信息搜索及其对医患关系影响的现有研究。
我们系统地检索了2000年至2015年期间的PubMed以及关键的医学信息学、信息系统和通信科学期刊。纳入英文的实证文章。我们分析了涵盖两大类主题的内容：影响患者在会诊期间讨论在线发现的因素以及对医患关系的影响。
我们确定了18篇符合纳入标准和综述质量要求的文章。这些文章揭示了影响患者在会诊期间披露在线健康信息的障碍、促进因素和人口统计学因素，以及患者用于披露这些发现的不同机制。我们的综述还展示了在线信息可能影响患者与医生关系的机制。
本综述的结果有助于理解了解互联网信息的患者的医患关系。我们的主要发现表明，互联网健康信息搜索能否改善医患关系取决于患者是否与医生讨论该信息以及他们之前的关系。随着患者通过互联网能够更好地获取健康信息并期望更多地参与健康决策，必须重新审视传统的医患关系模式和沟通策略，以适应这一不断变化的人群。
