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Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Owners of dogs, cats, and other companion animals increasingly make use of the internet to find out how to best care for their animals. This may affect owners’ relations with veterinarians in both positive and negative ways. A positive consequence could be that owners are better info...

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Autores principales: Springer, Svenja, Grimm, Herwig, Sandøe, Peter, Lund, Thomas Bøker, Kristensen, Annemarie T., Corr, Sandra A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9404757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36009707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12162117
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author Springer, Svenja
Grimm, Herwig
Sandøe, Peter
Lund, Thomas Bøker
Kristensen, Annemarie T.
Corr, Sandra A.
author_facet Springer, Svenja
Grimm, Herwig
Sandøe, Peter
Lund, Thomas Bøker
Kristensen, Annemarie T.
Corr, Sandra A.
author_sort Springer, Svenja
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Owners of dogs, cats, and other companion animals increasingly make use of the internet to find out how to best care for their animals. This may affect owners’ relations with veterinarians in both positive and negative ways. A positive consequence could be that owners are better informed when they approach a veterinarian. However, there can also be challenging situations in which the owners may question veterinarians’ professional advice based on online information. Using a questionnaire, we found that a majority of Austrian, Danish, and UK veterinarians (n = 641) surveyed were occasionally confronted with clients who question their medical advice based on information obtained from the internet. In addition, the veterinarians were concerned about the potential for clients to misunderstand information found on the internet, or to develop unrealistic expectations of what is possible in small animal practices. As internet use becomes ever more widespread, we suggest that the types of resources that are available and used by animal owners should be further explored. ABSTRACT: Veterinary medicine is increasingly affected by animal owners having the opportunity to become better informed on pet health issues by using various internet resources. Using an online questionnaire including a section on clients’ use of internet resources to obtain medical information, this study aimed to investigate veterinarians’ estimates of the percentage of clients using internet resources, how often clients question veterinarians’ professional medical advice based on online information, and veterinarians’ attitudes towards clients’ use of internet resources, across Austrian, Danish, and UK veterinarians (n = 641). The results show that 48.8% of respondents estimated that 40–79% of their clients use internet resources to find medical information. Further, 70–80% of respondents stated that they are occasionally challenged by clients questioning their advice based on online information. Although veterinarians recognized the potential advantages related to clients’ use of internet resources, such as an increased acceptance of advanced diagnostics and treatments, they also highlighted clients’ increased expectations or false impressions of small animal practices as potentially negative aspects in this context. As internet use increases, it seems likely that these issues will become increasingly important in the future.
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spelling pubmed-94047572022-08-26 Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK Springer, Svenja Grimm, Herwig Sandøe, Peter Lund, Thomas Bøker Kristensen, Annemarie T. Corr, Sandra A. Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Owners of dogs, cats, and other companion animals increasingly make use of the internet to find out how to best care for their animals. This may affect owners’ relations with veterinarians in both positive and negative ways. A positive consequence could be that owners are better informed when they approach a veterinarian. However, there can also be challenging situations in which the owners may question veterinarians’ professional advice based on online information. Using a questionnaire, we found that a majority of Austrian, Danish, and UK veterinarians (n = 641) surveyed were occasionally confronted with clients who question their medical advice based on information obtained from the internet. In addition, the veterinarians were concerned about the potential for clients to misunderstand information found on the internet, or to develop unrealistic expectations of what is possible in small animal practices. As internet use becomes ever more widespread, we suggest that the types of resources that are available and used by animal owners should be further explored. ABSTRACT: Veterinary medicine is increasingly affected by animal owners having the opportunity to become better informed on pet health issues by using various internet resources. Using an online questionnaire including a section on clients’ use of internet resources to obtain medical information, this study aimed to investigate veterinarians’ estimates of the percentage of clients using internet resources, how often clients question veterinarians’ professional medical advice based on online information, and veterinarians’ attitudes towards clients’ use of internet resources, across Austrian, Danish, and UK veterinarians (n = 641). The results show that 48.8% of respondents estimated that 40–79% of their clients use internet resources to find medical information. Further, 70–80% of respondents stated that they are occasionally challenged by clients questioning their advice based on online information. Although veterinarians recognized the potential advantages related to clients’ use of internet resources, such as an increased acceptance of advanced diagnostics and treatments, they also highlighted clients’ increased expectations or false impressions of small animal practices as potentially negative aspects in this context. As internet use increases, it seems likely that these issues will become increasingly important in the future. MDPI 2022-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9404757/ /pubmed/36009707 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12162117 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Springer, Svenja
Grimm, Herwig
Sandøe, Peter
Lund, Thomas Bøker
Kristensen, Annemarie T.
Corr, Sandra A.
Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title_full Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title_fullStr Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title_full_unstemmed Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title_short Compete or Cooperate with ‘Dr. Google’? Small Animal Veterinarians’ Attitudes towards Clients’ Use of Internet Resources—A Comparative Study across Austria, Denmark and the UK
title_sort compete or cooperate with ‘dr. google’? small animal veterinarians’ attitudes towards clients’ use of internet resources—a comparative study across austria, denmark and the uk
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9404757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36009707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani12162117
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