Research from the University of Bath has shown that adolescents seeking treatment for pain on the internet won’t get the help they need due to a lack of information, wrong information or poor quality.
Researchers from their Centre for Pain Research have warned of the potential dangers to adolescents who use internet forums as a means of information and advice to treat pain.
A team of their researchers analysed websites aimed at young people suffering with pain such as headaches, abdominal pain and dysmenorrhoea (period pain) and found that very few websites aimed at young people had professional medical advice.
The research found the quality of the information available was generally poor and inaccurate and where sites were of higher quality, they became less accessible to many adolescents of a younger reading age.
Ellen Henderson from the Centre for Pain Research, who led the study, said: “It is a worrying trend that those web sites which aim to inform adolescents about pain are often too difficult for them to read, leading to adolescents possibly taking advice from other less reliable sites, as these are aimed at their level of understanding.”
You can read the original article on the University of Bath website here.
