Medical counseling through computer communication networks.
Medical counseling on the computer communication network will be used increasingly with wide-ranging concern of people about health and strengthening the role of medical care as social service. This study was designed to explore main problems/issues of network counseling and to suggest future prosperity of medical counseling. We analyzed questions and answers in the Association of Family Medicine in the KETEL since 1991, Medical counseling corner which is in the UNITEL since 1996, and Online counseling in VIRTUAL HOSPITAL since 1996, and classified the reason for encounter, systematic classification of counseling by ICPC, and answer content. Inquiry about symptoms was the most common reason for encounter, followed by treatment and prevention strategies, detailed information about diseases, and inquiry about laboratory tests. Systematic classification by ICPC showed common problems of skin, digestive, musculoskeletal and general & unspecified, which was a different look compared with common problems in primary care. The answer content presented a different look among three groups. Common answers were mainly to offer medical information, to recommend visiting a doctor, and to provide self-care remedies. Network counselling will supplement the incompleteness of medical interview with doctors, and make it easy to communicate various pieces of information between patients and doctors.
Yoo
S M
SM
Dept. of Family Medicine, Dankook University College of Medicine, Cheonan, Korea. ethereal@ns.anseo.dankook.ac.kr
Lee
H
H
Kim
S Y
SY
D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000145:classification*; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*