The Attitude of South Korean People Regarding Usage of The Internet Perinatal Consultation

BACKGROUND: To the general public, the Internet is an acceptable method of obtaining information. It also plays an important role in guiding patients and solving their problems. We investigated the clinical characteristics of an Internet website to provide guidelines and tips for consultation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this retrospective observational study, we analyzed the use of a free public Internet perinatal consultation website provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea. We evaluated 2,254 Internet perinatal consultations and assessments of prenatal and obstetrics from August 2006 to December 2009. We evaluated the patients’ questions based on Williams’ textbook categories and their clinical characteristics. RESULTS: The mean age of patients seeking consultation was 33.9 ± 13.2 years, and parity was 1.2 ± 0.5. The most commonly asked questions were about drug safety during pregnancy (20.4%), and questions regarding prenatal care (18.7%) and labor pain (15.4%) were the second and third most commonly asked questions, respectively. CONCLUSION: The Internet can provide good information to patients. Thus, guidelines regarding pregnancy-related questions and answers should be created. Obstetricians could use our data to identify question tendencies.