Finding Medical Photographs of Patients Online: Randomized, Cross-Sectional Study
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
BACKGROUND: Photographs from medical case reports published in academic journals have previously been found in online image search results. This means that patient photographs circulate beyond the original journal website and can be freely accessed online. While this raises ethical and legal concerns, no systematic study has documented how often this occurs. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to provide systematic evidence that patient photographs from case reports published in medical journals appear in Google Images search results. Research questions included the following: (1) what percentage of patient medical photographs published in case reports were found in Google Images search results? (2) what was the relationship between open access publication status and image availability? and (3) did the odds of finding patient photographs on third-party websites differ between searches conducted in 2020 and 2022? METHODS: The main outcome measure assessed whether at least 1 photograph from each case report was found on Google Images when using a structured search. Secondary outcome variables included the image source and the availability of images on third-party websites over time. The characteristics of medical images were described using summary statistics. The association between the source of full-text availability and image availability on Google Images was tested using logistic regressions. Finally, we examined the trend of finding patient photographs using generalized estimating equations. RESULTS: From a random sample of 585 case reports indexed in PubMed, 186 contained patient photographs, for a total of 598 distinct images. For 142 (76.3%) out of 186 case reports, at least 1 photograph was found in Google Images search results. A total of 18.3% (110/598) of photographs included eye, face, or full body, including 10.9% (65/598) that could potentially identify the patient. The odds of finding an image from the case report online were higher if the full-text paper was available on ResearchGate (odds ratio [OR] 9.16, 95% CI 2.71-31.02), PubMed Central (OR 7.90, 95% CI 2.33-26.77), or Google Scholar (OR 6.07, 95% CI 2.77-13.29) than if the full-text was available solely through an open access journal (OR 5.33, 95% CI 2.31-12.28). However, all factors contributed to an increased risk of locating patient images online. Compared with the search in 2020, patient photographs were less likely to be found on third-party websites based on the 2022 search results (OR 0.61, 95% Cl 0.43-0.87). CONCLUSIONS: A high proportion of medical photographs from case reports was found on Google Images, raising ethical concerns with policy and practice implications. Journal publishers and corporations such as Google are best positioned to develop an effective remedy. Until then, it is crucial that patients are adequately informed about the potential risks and benefits of providing consent for clinicians to publish their images in medical journals.
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,025 | 0,038 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,001 | 0,001 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,002 | 0,001 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,002 |
| Communication savante | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Science ouverte | 0,001 | 0,000 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,004 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,006 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule tête enseignante, pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».