Responses to unsolicited patient e-mail requests for medical advice on the World Wide Web

CONTEXT: The Internet is increasingly used by consumers to seek health and medical information, but online medical advice has not been explored systematically. OBJECTIVE: To explore the attitude of physicians and other providers of medical information on the Internet toward unsolicited e-mail from patients and their reaction to a fictitious acute medical problem described in such an e-mail. DESIGN: E-mail in December 1997 and January 1998 to Web sites from a fictitious patient describing an acute dermatological problem. Follow-up questionnaire survey to the same sites. SETTING: World Wide Web. SUBJECTS: Fifty-eight physicians and Web masters. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Response rate and types of responses. RESULTS: Twenty-nine (50%) responded to the fictitious patient request; 9 respondents (31%) refused to give advice without having seen the lesion, 27 (93%) recommended that the patient see a physician, and 17 (59%) explicitly mentioned the correct "diagnosis" in their reply. In response to the questionnaire, 8 (28%) of the 29 respondents said that they tended not to answer any patient e-mail, 7 (24%) said they usually reply with a standard e-mail message, and 7 (24%) said they answer each request individually. CONCLUSIONS: Responses of physicians and Web masters to e-mail requests for medical advice vary as do approaches to handling unsolicited e-mail. Standards for physician response to unsolicited patient e-mail are needed.