MEDICAL SELF-DIAGNOSIS: OPPORTUNITIES AND PERSPECTIVES OF HEALTH CARE

• Main Authors: Astra Tautvaišaitė, Aldona Gaižauskienė
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mykolas Romeris University 2017-03-01
• Series: Health Policy and Management
• Subjects: medical self-diagnosis; self-service technology; technology acceptance model; e-health; health policy
• Online Access: https://www3.mruni.eu/ojs/health-policy-and-management/article/view/4651
• ISSN: 2029-3569; 2029-9001

The Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) states that one of the most important rights of every human is to stay healthy; therefore, national politicians must constantly search for new and effective ways to achieve this. In a fast paced world, with ageing population and health care institutions faced with huge costs, as health care struggles to change to meet these demands, medical self-diagnosis (the process of diagnosing, or identifying, medical conditions in oneself, with the use of computer technology) has recently become increasingly popular in the world. The aim of this article is to review international practice in the field of medical self-diagnosis and investigate society’s attitude towards medical self-diagnosis in Lithuania. Starting about in the 1980s, first medical self-diagnosis programs were developed worldwide; however, the term “medical self-diagnosis” is not yet widely known in Lithuania, and the opportunities of medical self-diagnosis have not yet been defined in the legislation of the country. According to study results, the attitude of Lithuanian people to medical self-diagnosis is favourable as self-diagnosisis acceptable to 68.2 percent of respondents. In order for medical self-diagnosis software to be popular among residents of Lithuania, developers must ensure that it is easy to use and comes from a trustworthy service provider.