About 55 per cent of Kiwis now use the internet to research health woes and one in five do it weekly or more, a national survey has found.
The TNS research was carried out for the Southern Cross Healthcare Group found that of the 55 per cent doing the research, 21 per cent used it to identify the problem themselves and 4 per cent didn’t go to the doctor as a result. Also about 22 per cent of the 55 per cent of respondents surfing the internet for health information are doing it at least once a week.
The survey also showed that the most likely to search for health information online were those living in Wellington and Tauranga, were female rather than male, and were aged under 50 years.
Southern Cross reports that its own online medical library attracted 1.3 million site visits in 2013 with the most popular pages being glandular fever, pneumonia, diabetes, menopause, and gout.
