Washington (AFP)
"How did I catch chlamydia?"
"Little red dots"
"Ingrown hairs or genital warts?"
More and more people are seeking sexually transmitted disease diagnoses on the Reddit social network, according to a study published in a US medical journal Tuesday, which the authors call "crowd-diagnosis" or participatory diagnosis.
Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have recovered 17,000 posts on. Then they analyzed 500 random posts.
58% of the messages asked users for a diagnosis. One third of these requests contained a photograph (buttons, penis ...), according to.
One in five requests for a diagnosis were made to obtain a second opinion, after consulting a doctor. Including the disturbing case of someone who tested positive for HIV, but who asked for the opinion of Reddit users.
These users gladly give their opinion, and quickly: almost all messages have received an answer, with a response time of less than three hours for half.
"Everyone is talking about Dr. Google and people who go online for information to self-diagnose," says AFP John Ayers, an epidemiologist at the University of California San Diego and co-author of the analysis.
"But the reality is that this is not how people use the internet, they want real interactions with real people."
The problem: "The participatory diagnosis, as it exists today, is totally inaccurate and dangerous," says John Ayers. "But we can channel these millions of diagnostic requests into something good," he pleads.
He and his colleagues imagine health professionals investing themselves in the internet to answer questions - not necessarily to make a diagnosis based on information that is often insufficient, but to make a first screening, or refer applicants to a test clinic near from home, or to a telemedicine consultation.
"We will not be able to stop people from continuing to do it ... We have to go where it is, in the social networks where they seek help," says John Ayers.
He puts forward the example of subreddit on suicide. "Trained experts are moderating this Reddit, and they are guiding people" to specialized supports and phone numbers, he says.
© 2019 AFP