Partnership with patients

BMJ 1998;317:413 ( 8 August )

Letters

Partnership with patients

Health professionals need to identify how much information patients want

Telephone helpline services can meet patients' demand for information

Health professionals need to identify how much information patients want

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ In outlining the implications for professionals of the rise of "healthcare consumers" Richards emphasises two elementsthat are necessary for partnership: information of better qualityand greater involvement for patients in decisions.¹ In bothcases, however, true partnership goes deeper still. Informationneeds to be designed with the help of patients, and the extentof involvement in decisions needs to be tailored to the individualpatient.

Health professionals and patients have different priorities for information about drug treatment.² Contrary to the beliefs of some health professionals, patients are keen to know more about possible side effects, although we need a better understandingof the best way to present this information. Information may betoo complex or theoretical for patients to follow. The languagemay be wrongly pitched. When researchers in the United Statesreviewed literature on systemic lupus erythematosus they foundthat 89% of materials were too complex . . . [Full text of this article]