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Maybe the Internet shouldn’t be the first place to go when you’re feeling ill.
Harvard Medical School researchers found that FreeMd, WebMd and other symptom-checking websites were largely inaccurate. In fact, of the 23 sites tested, a patient’s illness was correctly identified only about one-third of the time. And, only about half of the time did the web checks list the correct malady in the top 20 possibly diagnoses.
The Washington Post compiled a table of which online tools were the most accurate. (Symcat wins the most accurate award, for what it’s worth.)
The researchers note that the symptom-checker sites can be more useful than simply using a search engine to try to pinpoint a problem. But, given the inaccuracy, the sites can lead to self-misdiagnosis that only creates or confounds the problem.