The Journal of Participatory Medicine has published an interesting piece on Self Diagnosis, subtitled A Discursive Systematic Review of the Medical Literature. It’s a complex subject – as patients become more informed and empowered, they are more liable to want to have a role in diagnosis, and more apt to question a doctor’s perception or framing of their condition. This isn’t new for some of us – thirty years ago I was disagreeing with my physician to the extent that he would prescribe to treatments, one based on his assessment and one based on mine.
The systematic review published in the JOPM turned up 51 articles, of which 38 were suitable for inclusion in the review. There are three assessments of self-diagnosis: that it’s reliable and desirable (31%), that it’s not reliable but still desirable (23%), or that it’s neither reliable nor desirable (29%).
