Cyberchondriacs consult Dr. Google, Wikipedia and other general Web sites. They also consult Facebook and other social media about ailment symptoms and disease overviews. Often, overlaying anxiety leads the cyberchondriac to misinterpret the information. Hospital librarians have the opportunity to steer cyberchondriacs to quality information and build their health literacy. This can be done through direct contact, working through a hospital committee or reaching out through the public library. This author totally agrees with colleagues, Dee Jones and Donna Timm, who in their Journal of Hospital Librarianship article in 2008, suggested that the librarian is in the best position to steer cyberchondriacs in the right direction to find reliable health information (8) The Hospital Librarian can remind cyberchondriacs of the limits of the Internet, help them distinguish between credible and noncredible sites and give them a checklist to determine the credibility of the Web sites.
展开▼
