大多數(shù)時(shí)候，谷歌醫(yī)生并不知道你是什么癥狀

大多數(shù)時(shí)候，谷歌醫(yī)生并不知道你是什么癥狀

Everyone likes a quick medical diagnosis. And no one delivers one faster than Google. Just rattle off your symptoms in a search window — stiff neck, headache, bit of a fever — and congratulations, you've got . . .. meningitis?

每個(gè)人都喜歡快速的醫(yī)療診斷。而且沒(méi)有人能比谷歌更快。只需在搜索窗口中快速說(shuō)出你的癥狀——脖子僵硬、頭痛、有點(diǎn)發(fā)燒——然后恭喜你，你已經(jīng)……腦膜炎嗎?

Google doesn't know as much about your medical history as your doctor. (Photo: smolaw/Shutterstock)

Now you can add heart palpitations and anxiety to your symptoms. But before you Google, "how to make your last will and testament," know this: If there was a real Dr. Google, he would have had his license to practice taken away years ago. Because, as a new study from Australia's Edith Cowan University points out, he's wrong most of the time.

現(xiàn)在你的癥狀會(huì)增加心悸和焦慮。但是在你搜索“如何立遺囑”之前，要知道:如果有一個(gè)真正的谷歌博士，他的行醫(yī)執(zhí)照早在幾年前就被吊銷了。澳大利亞伊迪絲考恩大學(xué)的一項(xiàng)新研究指出，因?yàn)樗蠖鄶?shù)時(shí)候都是錯(cuò)的。

Publishing their work this month in the Medical Journal of Australia, researchers looked at 36 mobile and web-based symptom checkers. They found the sites were right — producing the correct diagnosis as the first result — a mere 36% of the time. Online symptom checkers were also spotty when it came to finding the right diagnosis within the top three results, with a rate of 52%. For what it's worth, the same sites did manage to get the right diagnosis in their top 10 results 58% of the time.

研究人員本月在《澳大利亞醫(yī)學(xué)雜志》上發(fā)表了他們的研究成果。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)這些觀點(diǎn)是正確的——產(chǎn)生正確的診斷作為第一個(gè)結(jié)果——只有36%的幾率。在線癥狀檢查器在前三名結(jié)果中發(fā)現(xiàn)正確診斷的幾率也不高，為52%。值得注意的是，同樣的網(wǎng)站在排名前10的搜索結(jié)果中，有58%的結(jié)果得到了正確的診斷。

That could be a problem for a society that increasingly leans on Google for health advice. According to the search giant, about 7% of the queries it receives are health-related, which works out to about 70,000 asks-per-minute.

對(duì)于一個(gè)越來(lái)越依賴谷歌提供健康建議的社會(huì)來(lái)說(shuō)，這可能是個(gè)問(wèn)題。據(jù)這家搜索巨頭說(shuō)，它收到的查詢中約7%是與健康有關(guān)的，相當(dāng)于每分鐘約7萬(wàn)個(gè)問(wèn)題。

And the answers are mostly wrong.

答案大多是錯(cuò)誤的。

"While it may be tempting to use these tools to find out what may be causing your symptoms, most of the time they are unreliable at best and can be dangerous at worst," lead author Michela Hill, a Master's student at Edith Cowan University, notes in a press release.

伊迪絲考恩大學(xué)的碩士研究生、該研究的主要作者M(jìn)ichela Hill在一份新聞稿中指出:“雖然使用這些工具來(lái)找出可能導(dǎo)致癥狀的原因可能很誘人，但大多數(shù)情況下，這些工具往好了說(shuō)是不可靠的，往壞了說(shuō)是危險(xiǎn)的。”

The most popular health sites — identified by researchers using, surprise, surprise, Google search — simply don't know enough facts about the patient in question to make an accurate diagnosis, foremost among them, our medical history.

最受歡迎的健康網(wǎng)站——由研究人員使用“驚喜”、“驚喜”、“谷歌搜索”來(lái)識(shí)別——根本不了解有關(guān)病人的足夠事實(shí)，無(wú)法做出準(zhǔn)確的診斷，其中最重要的是我們的病史。

And, since the sites don't carry a disclaimer like, "For entertainment purposes only," users are frequently left with a false sense of security, or — depending on the diagnosis — anxiety.

而且，由于這些網(wǎng)站沒(méi)有“僅供娛樂(lè)用途”這樣的免責(zé)聲明，用戶經(jīng)常會(huì)產(chǎn)生一種錯(cuò)誤的安全感，或者——取決于診斷結(jié)果的——焦慮。

In fact, the only diagnosis Doc Google gets right 100% of the time is cyberchondria — a condition that has us turning to Google for medical advice that often makes us feel even worse.

事實(shí)上，谷歌醫(yī)生唯一100%正確的診斷是上網(wǎng)疑病癥——這種情況會(huì)讓我們求助于谷歌尋求醫(yī)療建議，這通常會(huì)讓我們感覺(jué)更糟。

"We've all been guilty of being 'cyberchondriacs' and googling at the first sign of a niggle or headache," Hill explains. "But the reality is these websites and apps should be viewed very cautiously as they do not look at the whole picture — they don't know your medical history or other symptoms.

希爾解釋說(shuō):“我們都曾為自己是‘網(wǎng)絡(luò)疑病癥患者’而感到內(nèi)疚，一有輕微癥狀或頭痛的跡象就上網(wǎng)搜索。”“但現(xiàn)實(shí)情況是，這些網(wǎng)站和應(yīng)用程序應(yīng)該被非常謹(jǐn)慎地看待，因?yàn)樗鼈儾⒉蝗?mdash;—它們不了解你的病史或其他癥狀。”

"For people who lack health knowledge, they may think the advice they're given is accurate or that their condition is not serious when it may be."

“對(duì)于缺乏健康知識(shí)的人來(lái)說(shuō)，他們可能會(huì)認(rèn)為他們得到的建議是正確的，或者他們的病情可能并不嚴(yán)重。”

There's also the question of how exactly these sites formulate a diagnosis, especially considering they're not regulated or even monitored by government bodies.

還有一個(gè)問(wèn)題是，這些網(wǎng)站究竟是如何制定診斷方案的，尤其是考慮到它們不受政府機(jī)構(gòu)的監(jiān)管，甚至不受政府機(jī)構(gòu)的監(jiān)控。

"There is no real transparency or validation around how these sites are acquiring their data," Hill adds.

“這些網(wǎng)站獲取數(shù)據(jù)的方式?jīng)]有真正的透明度或有效性，”希爾補(bǔ)充道。

That's not to say online symptoms checkers don't play a role in the health of a society. As a means of monitoring viral outbreaks, they're already proving instrumental.

這并不是說(shuō)在線癥狀檢查器沒(méi)有在社會(huì)健康中發(fā)揮作用。作為監(jiān)測(cè)病毒爆發(fā)的一種手段，它們已經(jīng)被證明是有用的。

"We're also seeing symptom checkers being used to good effect with the current COVID-19 pandemic," Hill explains. "For example, the UK's National Health Service is using these tools to monitor symptoms and potential 'hot spot' locations for this disease on a national basis."

希爾解釋說(shuō):“我們還看到，在當(dāng)前的COVID-19大流行中，癥狀檢測(cè)儀發(fā)揮了良好的作用。”“例如，英國(guó)國(guó)家衛(wèi)生服務(wù)正在使用這些工具來(lái)監(jiān)測(cè)全國(guó)范圍內(nèi)這種疾病的癥狀和潛在的‘熱點(diǎn)’位置。”

But if you're experiencing real pain or discomfort, the best advice Doc Google could offer would be to go and see a real doctor.

但如果你真的感到疼痛或不適，谷歌醫(yī)生能給你的最好建議就是去看真正的醫(yī)生。