Are you, by any chance, not a cyberchondrick?

Soon we will ask each other such questions. Remember, as in a well-known literary work: I read the medical encyclopedia and found all diseases except for fever. Now everything is much more serious. Encyclopedias have given way to the Internet. And it began! … The availability of medical information is growing into real epidemics of various diseases.

Cyberchondria is a disease from medical information. According to American scientists, the availability of medical information online has led to an increase in the incidence of cyberchondria in the world – a disorder consisting in the desire to make an independent diagnosis based on the symptoms of diseases described on the Internet sites. The results of a study of people’s reactions to medical information on the Internet are provided in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. In fact, this is the same overdiagnosis. Continue reading →