Popular online symptom checkers produce a correct diagnosis only about one third of the time, an Australian study shows.

In addition, triage advice often suggests seeking medical care when it’s not needed and conversely can be potentially dangerous, such as suggesting stroke care was ‘non-urgent’.

Researchers tested the accuracy of 36 popular mobile and web-based symptom checkers, using 48 clinical scenarios that were vetted by two GPs and an ED specialist with a combined 87 years of clinical experience.

Among the diagnostic symptom checkers, findings showed that the correct diagnosis was listed as the first result only 36% of the time, made the top three results 52% of the time, and was among the top 10 results 58% of the time.