Self Help Pain Relief on the World Wide Web: What Is a Health Care Provider to Do?

Abstract

The Internet is growing at an astounding rate and with practically no controls. Patients turn to the Internet-especially the World Wide Web (WWW) component of it-for all sorts of information, advice, and referrals. Health care professionals may struggle to keep up with the information load, either because they do not know it exists or they do not know how to find it. This article focuses on patient oriented pain relief resources in an effort to boost providers to the same level of sophistication that their patients exhibit in cyberspace.