The last time you had a terrible headache, you probably scribbled your symptoms on the Google search column to find out what could be wrong. The results listed out several diseases you could be having – from migraine, brain tumors, to maybe a stroke! You might get “lucky” and the symptom checker narrows your diagnosis to one. Well, a new study has found that more than half the time, Google is always wrong about what it tells you about your symptoms.
The study analyzed several mobile and web-based symptom checkers and found that they produced the right diagnosis as the first result about 36 percent of the time. The study also shows that you are likely to get the right diagnosis as part of the top three results a little more than half the time. Not only that, these symptom checkers must have stated when and where you should seek health care; the study found the results to this are always wrong more than half the time.
The study recommends seeking proper health check for your symptoms and not to rely on automated responses or results that don’t particularly know your symptoms or medical history. While they may have a place in healthcare systems, online symptom checkers are not to be relied upon as a replacement for a hospital or clinic visit.
These applications lack quality control; have little to no prior knowledge about your medical history, and; may leave you with a wrong diagnosis.
Read more here – https://www.ecu.edu.au/news/latest-news/2020/05/new-ecu-research-finds-dr-google-is-almost-always-wrong
