More than 54% of Spanish citizens use the Internet to consult their health, El Economista reports (link in Spanish). These data come from a survey of a thousand people by the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC). It shows that the most frequent topics are those related to symptoms and discomforts (almost 72%), access to health services (57.1%), diagnosis (55%) and prescription drugs (60%). and lifestyle (63%).
Web pages constitute results of most searches, which reaffirms that users give greater importance to websites than to magazines specializing in health issues. In result, many lack valid, reliable and quality information. Often, internet offers erroneous diagnoses and creates alarmism among the population that may lead to erroneous self-diagnosis and subsequent taking of drugs to start treatment without any evidence.