In Defence of Self Diagnosis
In an ideal world, everyone who suspects that they have a disability would be vigorously assessed and supported by a doctor. However, the reality is that getting a medical diagnosis for a disability is a luxury that few can afford or even get sufficient access to. Nobody wants to rely on Dr Google, but for many people it is their only option.
Everyone is guilty of typing their symptoms into Google with the hope of getting some answers, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that the conditions that subsequently come up might not be what’s causing their symptoms – often all it means is that these web pages are the ones that have the best SEO structure (meaning that they are good at optimizing keywords to manipulate web search results) and consequently, are the most highest-ranking results on the web. Clearly, a robot’s algorithm is no substitute for a real-life human personally assessing you.
Photo: Unsplash A close up shot of a person’s hands typing on a laptop. The laptop is on a table and its screen is facing the camera. Google is open its browser. On the left of the laptop us a bunch of flowers in a vase. On its right is an iPhone facing down and a pen.
What makes searching for diagnoses online even more concerning is the fact that the content ranked the highest by search engines and most favoured by the algorithm is poorly-researched, sensationalist fake news as opposed to substantial scientific research.
According to research, while the top 1% of fake news reaches 100,000 people online, the truth only reaches up to 1,000. Subsequently, the likelihood is that the condition that people diagnose themselves with online is not based on accuracy, but on sensationalist, click-bait content that will automatically consider the worst case scenario. This in turn will harm people’s wellbeing who self diagnose further, with 74% of people who have tried to self-diagnose online reporting that they became stressed by what they found.
It is precisely because self-diagnosing is such a harmful practice that society needs to work harder to ensure more people get official, medical diagnoses – but for a lot of people, this isn’t a viable option. What makes the issue of getting a diagnosis so complex is that there’s a multitude of reasons why official diagnoses are so inaccessible. One of the biggest barriers people face is within their own National Health Service. If this pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the NHS is chronically underfunded and barely keeping afloat.
Despite temporary cash boosts in 2018 and 2019, the average rise in budget for the NHS between 2010 and 2019 was 1.4%. Comparatively, prior to this period the NHS’ budget rose on average by 3.7% every year since its establishment in 1948. This means that on average, the funding the NHS has received since 2010 has been scaled back to nearly half of what it was. A direct consequence of this lack of funding is less consultants and specialists being available to assist patients in diagnoses, which then directly leads to longer wait times to get diagnosed, especially if your condition is more complex. For example, recent data by the NHS shows that 79.7% of patients waiting to start treatment have been waiting at least 18 weeks.
There is also the sad but true fact that some patients are unable to get a referral in the first place because their GPs are often dismissive, unsympathetic and sceptical. A recent Government inquiry found that for women patients especially, countless valid health concerns and genuine risks to safety were written off as being “all in their head”. With the report concluding that the trust between patients and GPs was “seriously broken”, it’s unsurprising that many people either fail to access a referral or don’t even bother to try.
The only real alternative to getting a diagnosis from the NHS is to access treatment privately. While the standard of healthcare is often a lot better – doctors are more sympathetic and patients will often be referred straight away – it is once again inaccessible to the majority of the population due to the associated costs. With the average cost of private healthcare being £1,435 per year, seeking a diagnosis privately is not a financially viable option for most people with disabilities, especially if their condition means that they are unable to work.
Photo: Unsplash A close up shot of a magnifying glass being held over the keyboard of a laptop.
Yet, without medical proof of being disabled, many of those who are left unable to work are not entitled to certain state benefits such as the Personal Independence Payment, meaning that this cycle of poverty and inability to afford private healthcare will continue.
With more than half of UK adults self-diagnosing, it is time for attitudes to change. The deep-rooted institutional inequalities that exist within our healthcare system means that for many people, self-diagnosis is the only option there is. There are obvious flaws in the self-diagnostic system, but blaming the people who resort to it won’t stop it from happening. We should instead be directing our energy towards addressing the barriers that prevent people from getting official diagnoses.
Written by Charlotte Colombo