BMJ 1999;318:461 ( 13 February )

Letters

Evidence based patient information

    Doctors should be encouraged to develop information resources on the internet
    Computers can be used to tailor information to patients
    Local policies would be better than a national strategy
    Differing standards of literacy are better catered for with computers

Doctors should be encouraged to develop information resources on the internet

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

EDITOR---Coulter's editorial on evidence based patient information presents a counsel of perfection for those who seek to provide information for their patients.1 Her call for a national public information strategy and for training for clinicians in how to use better materials sounds "maternalistic" and overprotective. She belittles the effort that health professionals have invested in providing such information, and the tenor of her editorial seems to be to discourage these attempts. She deplores the paternalism of "well intentioned" health professionals who provide the public with material of "infantile quality."

Many patients choose to consult non-scientific sources of information about their conditions, including family members and alternative practitioners. Advice from such sources is likely to be far more dangerous than minor inaccuracies in information literature for patients. What is needed is not another nanny state initiative but one that encourages enthusiastic health professionals to get together and use their . . . [Full text of this article]
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  • Radvan, D., Wiggers, J., Hazell, T. (2004). HEALTH C.H.I.P.s: opportunistic community use of computerized health information programs. Health Educ Res 19: 581-590 [Abstract] [Full text]  

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