Many patients have a hard time deciphering online test results, leading to unnecessary anxiety, doctors warn on the back of two new studies.

The findings raise questions over the benefits versus risks of giving patients access to their digital pathology reports and highlight the need for test results to be written with patients in mind, they say in JAMA Dermatology.

The warnings come at a time when Australia is encouraging pathology labs to upload their results to patients’ My Health Records.

The first study surveyed 225 patients to see how well they understood the diagnosis after reading a pathology report online.