The Pascoe Study 2017: How much the sick person longs for encouragement and understanding
Google is increasingly replacing a trip to the doctor. Nowadays, it has become the norm to first research complaints on the Internet. What drives patients "online" and how do they go about their search? What makes the search easier and what makes it more difficult? And: What do patients look for when researching their health online and how do they feel about it?
On behalf of Pascoe Naturmedizin, the Cologne-based rheingold institute conducted an extensive study that for the first time took a depth-psychological approach to the topic of (healing) searches on the Internet. This showed that in the case of illness, the Internet is the central catch-all network. "When searching the Internet, patients are concerned with much more than gaining information. The Net is becoming the scene of a comprehensive (healing) search that just a few years ago took place in the analog world of doctors' and alternative practitioners' offices," says Stephan Grünewald, a psychologist and co-founder of the rheingold institute in Cologne, explaining the phenomenon. In doctors' offices and hospitals, patients often miss the time, understanding and encouragement that they urgently need in their condition.
Subliminal religious longings
"Google thus has the nimbus of a potential savior for many people and serves subliminal religious motives and longings. Even for savvy Internet users, Google is the first instance and the beginning of all searches," says Grünewald. Google suggestions are readily taken up and followed up. What Google doesn't display during a search doesn't exist for users, it's not part of the analog world for them.
The representative study also makes it clear that Internet research in the otherwise accelerated, virtual world is not supposed to happen so quickly.
"Prompt healing at the push of a button is neither expected nor desired by patients. They know that healing takes time and are willing to invest that time."
Birgit Langebartels, graduate psychologist and director of studies
Character of a pilgrimage
Even in virtual space, patients embark on a long arduous journey. Driven by the desire to feel better at the end of the journey, they are prepared to deal with unfamiliar things, to take many detours, to literally go through ups and downs in their research.
In order to accompany people on this virtual pilgrimage and provide assistance, a website must offer much more than diagnoses. "The seekers want to feel perceived as a whole person, with all their worries, needs and also longings. The virtual pilgrimage has only reached its end when the person has found himself again, understood himself and has the feeling that he can turn to his everyday life with new courage," emphasizes Stephan Grünewald.
Six aspects of success in the journey to health:
01 - Comfort and understanding
Make the patient feel seen and cared for.
02 - Strengthen the seeker
Use of understandable technical terms and self-explanatory diagrams as well as clear structures and overviews to provide orientation.
03 - Show treatment options and case studies.
The website provider thus fulfills the desire of people to encounter miracle cures and strokes of fate.
04 - Building bridges to real and analog everyday life
Enable concrete exchange through hotlines and offers.
05 - Case histories and body-based symptom interrogation.
Photos of symptoms help patients to compare them with their own complaints, to become familiar with themselves and to learn to understand themselves.
06 - Search needs its turnover
Tips, recommendations or advice should be practical and understandable. Concrete everyday help rounds off the help for those seeking healing on the net. On the virtual pilgrimage, Pascoe Naturmedizin wants to be a trustworthy and competent partner in the (healing) search on the net.
For this purpose, the Pascoe Academy was created to show alternative paths in the field of experiential medicine and to make the exciting world of natural medicine comprehensible.
The click to natural health: www.pascoe-akademie.de
Videos, small tests and certificates combine in the portal decades of training experience and enthusiasm for natural medicine.
"With the Academy, anyone interested can become a specialist in natural medicine and thus better evaluate naturopathic forms of treatment. Nature's treasure chest is wide open to improve health and quality of life."
Anette Pascoe, Management Pascoe Natural Medicine
An offer - especially for professionals
"Specialists also get their money's worth: a special, DocCheck-protected area holds offers geared to the special needs of doctors, alternative practitioners and other members of specialist groups," explains Annette Pascoe. "Experts from research and practice pass on the great wealth of knowledge to their colleagues."
Click here for the brochure of the study:
