Internet has become a part of everyone's life. It has also changed the way in which we collect medicine related knowledge. Internet and increasing bandwidth (faster accessibility) is evolving at an extremely rapid pace. In not-so-distant past we never imagined, especially in India, user friendly internet access on our fingertips. Today it is not a dream but a reality even in places away from city. The net is increasingly being accessible on home, laptop, cell phones etc.
Why internet? Today it is hard to keep up with latest developments and medicine information via not only current editions of books but also regular periodicals. Hence, it has become order of the day to exploit internet capabilities to update ourselves faster. Health care professional including pharmaceutical professional today needs a constant and current sense of the health and medicine related knowledge on almost weekly basis.
Internet - the medical information gateway: It is a fact today that medically related websites are among the most popular ones being explored by surfers. Fortunately, there has been a corresponding growth in websites. A recent estimate suggests that more than 1,00,000 credible websites provide health and drug information. Nearly 500 new health websites are being added every month. According to another estimate, more than half of the internet users in USA in the year 2001 sought health information. Internet use in India is projected to grow ten fold by 2005, with around 45 million medicine and health information users.
Internet - quality of information: Although internet is the vast source of health and medicine related information, albeit finding accurate and valid information can be difficult for the common public and health professionals due to lack of control of such websites. There are both reliable and non-reliable websites. There are both professional and non-professional websites. Quality of information on these non-reliable, non-professional websites may be questionable. Anyone can develop website with any type of medical information they select. Table 1 shows a few well recognised internet sites provide on-line access that is free of charge. Obtaining quality information, therefore, is not easy from internet. There is wealth of drug information available in the net for everybody, but not all information is independent or easily and freely accessible. For example, using 'paracetamol dose' in keyboard searches on any search directory produces 1,13,000 titles. 'Paracetamol tablet' search produces 49,500 and the word 'fever' 1,61,00,000 titles within 30 seconds. Only 5-6% of these internet sites are usually found to follow established recommendation on close view. Knowing how to navigate these vast information websites is crucial to avoiding information overload.
| Recognized (free access) drug and health related websites |
| Medicine information |
| British National Formulary | http://www.bnf.org/bnf |
| WHO Model Formulary | http://mednet3.who.int/eml/ModelFormulary.asp |
| WHO Essential Drug Medicines Policy | http://www.who.int/medicines |
| Mark manual of diseases and therapy | www.merck.com/markshand/mmanual/html.jsp |
| UK Medicines Information | http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk |
| Pharmacovigilance |
| Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research | http://www.fda.gov/cder |
| Therapeutic Goods Administration | www.health.gov.au/tga |
| WHO collaborating centre for international drug monitoring | www.who-umc.org |
| Literature Database |
| EntrezPubMed/ Medline(3900 journals) | www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi |
| IndMed (76 Indian biomedical journals) | www.indmed.nic.in |
| Bulletins |
| Australian Prescriber | www.australianprescriber.com |
| International Society of Drug Bulletins | www.isdbweb.org (link to all bulletins) |
A pharmaceutical group of European Union had established a set of warnings for internet medicine buyers (www.pgeu.org). They have a leaflet for circulation entitled, "Enjoy the internet, but don't risk your health." Commission of European communities also established a set of quality criteria in 2001 for health related websites. Medicines buying through net may not be a problem right now in India, but we need to be sure that we find the complete and accurate health information. This is true not only for general public but also other health care professionals. Confusing as well as inadequate information from net related to medicine, its use, dosage form, dosage frequency, storage etc. may result in serious consequences. Medicines are safe and effective when they are used properly. This is possible if we get unbiased drug and health related information either in written or electronic format. More and more users who find themselves overwhelmed by the internet information may like to continue surf in search of new information. User's decision on the relevance of potential sources in the net and ability to identify appropriate ones will have impact in coming days, on wise use of medical and health information. Undermining quality internet information completely has risks to health.
-- The Authour is a Selection Grade Lecturer in Pharmacy, Annamalai University, Annmalainagar 608 002, TN. Email: cdl_scbasak@sancharnet.in