Comparing Medical Term Usage Patterns of Professionals and Search Engine and Community Question Answering Service Users in Japan: Log Analysis.

Search and question frequencies showed similar tendencies, whereas search and clinical frequencies showed discrepancy. Low-clinical frequency words related to diseases such as "hypothyroidism" and "ulcerative colitis" had high search frequencies, whereas those related to symptoms such as "pain," "slight fever," and "numbness" had high question frequencies. Moreover, high search frequency words included designated intractable diseases such as "ulcerative colitis," which has an incidence of less than 0.1% in the Japanese population. Therefore, it is generally worthwhile to pay attention not only to major diseases but also to minor diseases that users frequently seek information on, and more words will need to be analyzed in the future. Some characteristic words for certain age groups were observed (eg, 20-40 years: "cancer"; 40-60 years: diagnoses and diseases identified in health examinations; 60-70 years: diseases with late adulthood onset and "death"). Overall, this analysis demonstrates that medical professionals as information providers should be aware of clinical frequency, and medical information gaps between professionals and the general public should be bridged.