Talk:Self-diagnosis

"Self-diagnosis is the process of diagnosing, or identifying, medical conditions in oneself. It may be assisted by medical dictionaries, books, resources on the Internet, past personal experiences, or recognizing symptoms or medical signs of a condition that a family member previously had.

Self-diagnosis is prone to error and may be potentially dangerous if inappropriate decisions are made on the basis of a misdiagnosis.[1] Because of the risks, self-diagnosis is officially discouraged by governments,[1] physicians, and patient care organizations. Even physicians are discouraged from engaging in self-diagnosis,[2] because doctors also make mistakes in diagnosing themselves.[3] If the self-diagnosis is wrong, then the misdiagnosis can result in improper health care, including wrong treatments and lack of care for serious conditions.[4]"

I'd just like to point out that the same is true for diagnosis of other people as well... (I am not advocating self-diagnosis here, just pointing out the facts.)

LarchOye (talk) 22:31, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I
I did not like the version:

<<< Self diagnosis is the process of diagnosing medical conditions in oneself, regardless of medical knowledge or a medical license. It may be assisted by medical dictionaries, books or resources on the Internet (cyberchondria), and is sometimes prompted by encountering the condition in question in others.

Healthcare professionals warn that self diagnosis in the absence of professional advice is prone to error and may be potentially dangerous if inappropriate medication is taken. >>>

The phrase "regardless of medical knowledge or a medical license" is superfluous as well as "Healthcare professionals warn that" and "in the absence of professional advice".

That version smells like being written by a medical professional trying protect the medical turf. Hence the rewrite.

Now that I have your attention: Physicians in the first line make too many diagnosis errors in unusual cases. It is way over due that they validate their hunches by tools, that are now available to the public as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddccc (talk • contribs) 05:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Something
Something about the "celiac" phrasing at the end bothers me. Knowing several self-diagnosed celiacs who had to carefully watch their food intake, perform (painful) experiments to verify, etc., and knowing that some went for decades without proper diagnosis by trained medical specialists, I'd hate for this wording/positioning to imply that self-diagnosis of celiac disease is somehow "folksy", often wrong, etc. It just so happens that with food-related conditions like this one, it takes a lot of patience and patient involvement to be sure of a diagnosis -- and the results can be pretty obvious without a medical professional's help. Maybe it could be moved up into the section with cramps? Not because it's "common" but to avoid implying it's obviously wrong?67.67.4.64 (talk) 21:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't react to the presentation that way -- a celiac diagnosis is often essentially 'self-diagnosed' by following a physician's directions for a two-month 100% gluten-free diet, followed by reintroduction -- but food intolerances definitely present a special challenge and should be mentioned here. The number of kids who are sent off to preschool or elementary school with an unconfirmed "food allergy", based on things like "his cheeks seemed a little red one day after eating this", is an increasing problem.  School districts have finally started to fight back with demands for a formal letter of diagnosis from a licensed physician every year.
 * It's not just kids, either: I spoke with one man in his 70s a few months ago that had self-diagnosed intolerances to just about every food, to the point that his major health complaint was soon going to be scurvy.  His diagnostic procedure was:  any digestive disturbance (mild constipation, passing gas, burping, anything) proved that he could no longer eat whatever he had in the previous meal.  At the point that I spoke to him, his daily diet pretty much consisted of barley, white potatoes, and two dozen different herbal concoctions sold to him by a naturopath.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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See also section
The 'See also' section of this page is very cluttered. Normally this section contains just links to other articles. Try to limit each point with a few extra words at most. There is one point that doesn't even have a link.

This is a suggestion to the maintainer: only put articles directly related to self-diagnosis, like 'home remedy', in the see also, and put diseases and such in a seperate section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Candide124 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Selection of Care
I think this page should say something about the relationship between self-diagnosis and a patient's process of selecting a medical professional. Say, if one self-diagnosed with some condition, one will seek a professional in that. It might present trouble - maybe the wrong professional is chosen, but the diagnoses still match due to them being biased into thinking the patient has a pathology which also happens to be the one they dedicated themselves to.

I'm not qualified to implement such a change. It's also possible this is not a problem, yet I don't see how. Unknow0059 (talk) 04:48, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Urinary incontinence
Cam prolapse cause severe incontinence 92.16.144.144 (talk) 05:00, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Rhetoric of Health and Wellness
— Assignment last updated by Liliput000 (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi there!
 * We’re three students at Georgetown University who plan to make significant edits to this page.
 * Considering this article’s stub status, we plan to elaborate on the factors that influence self-diagnosis, primarily focusing on the following categories:
 * The role of the internet – How does the prevalence of symptom lists on the internet and social media increase the frequency of and alter the means in which someone self-diagnoses?
 * COVID-19 – How did the emphasis on rapid/self-testing change perceptions of self-diagnosis? How did the pandemic increase the ubiquity of self-diagnosis?
 * Big Pharma – How does marketing and advertising influence consumers to self-diagnose?
 * Stigma around illness – How do social norms surrounding illness, specifically mental illness and ASD, encourage or discourage people from self-diagnosing themselves? How does self-diagnosis provide comfort in the face of these stigma?
 * Demographic differences – How do different racial and socioeconomic groups experience self-diagnosis/self-testing trends differently?
 * Please let us know if there are any suggestions, objections, or questions. LavenderCloud (talk) 17:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC) @Writ015-tseng @Ciarrai32

Shortcomings of Conventional Healthcare
A section on systemic failures is appropriate. Paternalistic tone throughout the current version reflects cultural issues driving people to self-diagnosis. Education standards & access issues also need mention.

Profit motive as a conflict of interest. Healthcare profiteering, private equity, cost-cutting, intellectual property, etc. All else below could be separate sections, or subsections of this point.

No access to care and/or denial of continued care, whether overt or designed

Burdens involved in engaging with the present system. Financial, time-commitment, psychological, etc.

Racism & misogyny remaining in both research and in practice

Extreme workload of healthcare workers

Deterioration of patient-doctor relationship

Comments / insight appreciated. 73.252.238.67 (talk) 05:50, 6 July 2024 (UTC)