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An online questionnaire survey of more than 1,000 users of a consumer health website, SurgeryDoor, was conducted, which sought to discover why the site was consulted and whether the information obtained from it had any health outcome. The majority of respondents were women and middle aged. Doctors were the first port of call for information, but 50% of respondents cited the Internet as one of their top three information sources. Most people did not come to the site with a particular illness or medical condition. Two-thirds of users said that the information found had 'helped a lot' in being better informed. Just under half felt that the information they found had helped in their dealings with the doctor, while just over half felt that information found had changed the way they felt about their condition. More importantly, over one-third of respondents said that their condition had improved after having visited the site and more than one in four said that Web information had resulted in a deferred visit or had actually replaced a visit to the doctor.
Nicholas et al. (Sun,) studied this question.