Patient-targeted googling and psychiatric professionals

This is a pilot study which assesses the beliefs of psychiatric professionals regarding obtaining patient information via the Internet as well as the frequency with which they do it in a variety of clinical settings.

Psychiatry faculty and residents were asked to participate in an anonymous online survey about their use of the search engine Google to find information about their patients. Data were analyzed with Microsoft Excel.

The participants included 48 faculty and 34 residents (118 faculty and 44 residents were surveyed) with response rates of 41% and 77%, respectively. Majority of attending physicians and residents reported engaging in patient-targeted googling with no significant difference between the groups. Residents were most likely to search for patient information online in the psychiatric emergency room (45%). Psychiatric emergency room (36.8%) and private practice (31.6%) were notable clinical settings for obtaining further patient information on the Internet for the faculty. When describing reasons for engaging in patient-targeted googling, "patient care" was cited about twice as often as "curiosity" in the psychiatric emergency room, whereas "curiosity" and "patient care" were reasons mentioned in other clinical settings. In general, neither faculty nor residents report informing their patients of their Internet searches either before or after engaging in patient-targeted googling.

This study raises important questions about education for trainees and faculty regarding patient-targeted googling.