DISCERN: An instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Volumn 53, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 105-111

  Charnock, Deborah ^a   Shepperd, Sasha ^a,d   Needham, Gill ^b   Gann, Robert ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

^b Department of Public Health Medicine   (United Kingdom)

^c Help for Health Trust   (United Kingdom)

^d IMPERIAL COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME; CONSUMER; ENDOMETRIOSIS; EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE; HEALTH CARE QUALITY; HEART INFARCTION; MEDICAL DECISION MAKING; MEDICAL EXPERT; PATIENT INFORMATION; QUALITY CONTROL; SELF HELP;

EID: 0032895933     PISSN: 0143005X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1136/jech.53.2.105     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Department of Health NHS White Paper. The National Health Service. A service with ambitions. London: HMSO, 1996. (Cm 3425).
2. NHS Executive: Patient partnership: building a collaborative strategy. Leeds: Department of Health, 1996.
3. Meredith P, Emberton M, Wood C. New directions in information for patients. BMJ 1995;311:4-5.
4. Kee F. Patients' prerogatives and perceptions of benefit. BMJ 1996;312:958-60.
5. Richards MA, Ramirez AJ, Degner LF, et al. Offering choice of treatment to patients with cancers. A review based on a symposium held at the 10th Annual Conference of The British Psychosocial Oncology Group, December 1993. Eur J Cancer 1995;31A:112-16.
6. Meredith P, Emberton M, Wood C, et al. Comparison of patients' needs for information on prostate surgery with printed materials provided by surgeons. Quality in Health Care 1995;4:18-23.
7. Fallowfield LJ, Hall A, Maguire GP, et al. Psychological outcomes of different treatment policies in women with early breast cancer outside a clinical trial. BMJ 1990;301:575-80.
8. Brody DS, Miller SM, Lerman CE, et al. Patient perception of involvement in medical care. Relationship to illness attitudes and outcomes. J Gen Intern Med 1989;4:506-11.
9. Greenfield S, Kaplan S, Ware JE. Expanding patient involvement in care. Ann Intern Med 1985;102:520-8.
10. Kaplan SH, Greenfield S, Ware JE. Assessing the effects of physician-patient interactions on the outcomes of chronic disease. Med Care 1989;27:S110-27.
11. Coulter A. Partnerships with patients: the pros and cons of shared clinical decision making. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy 1997;2:112-21.
12. Blanchard CG, Labrecque MS, Ruckdeschel JC, et al. Information and decision-making preferences of hospitalized adult cancer patients. Soc Sci Med 1988;27:1139-15.
13. Gann B. Consumer health information in the year 2000. Association for Information Managers 1996;48:241-5.
14. Gann B, Buckland S. Dissemination of information on treatment outcomes by consumer health information services. Report to the King's Fund. Winchester: Help for Health Trust, 1994.
15. Oxman AD, Guyatt GH, Cook DJ, et al. An index of scientific quality for health reports in the lay press. J Clin Epidemiol 1993;46:987-1001.
16. Streiner DL, Norman GR. Health measurement scales: a practical guide to their development and use. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford Universiry Press, 1995:15-27.
17. Helpbox. Winchester: The Help for Health Trust.
18. National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The voluntary agencies directory. London: NCVO Publications, 1996.
19. Knight ST, ed. The popular medical index. Letchworth: Meade Publishing, 1996.
20. Pope C, Mays N. Reaching the parts other methods cannot reach: an introduction to qualitative methods in health and health services research. BMJ 1995;311:42-5.
21. Fleiss JL. The measurement of interrater agreement. In: Statistical methods for rates and proportions. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley, 1981:212-36.
22. Cohen J. Weighted kappa: nominal scale agreement with provision for scaled disagreement or partial credit. Psychol Bull 1968;70:213-20.
23. Altman DG. Practical statistics for medical research. London: Chapman and Hall, 1991:407-9.
24. Landis JR, Koch GG. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 1977;33:159-74.
25. Seeker J, Pollard R. Writing leaflets for patients. Guidelines for producing written information. Edinburgh: Health Education Board for Scotland, 1995.
26. Vahabi M, Ferris L. Improving written patient education materials: a review of the evidence. Health Educ J 1995;54: 99-106.
27. Flesch RF. A new readability yardstick. J Appl Psychol 1948; 32:221-33.
28. McLaughlin GH. SMOG grading - a new readability formula. Journal of Reading 1969;12:639-46.
29. Wright P. Usability: the criterion for designing written information. In: Kolers PA, Wrolstad ME, Bouma H, eds. Processing of visible language. Vol 2. New York: Plenum Publishing, 1980.
30. Marteau T. Framing of information: its influence upon decisions of doctors and patients. Br J Soc Psychol 1989;28: 89-94.
31. Malenka D, Baron J, Johansen S, et al. The framing effect of relative and absolute risk. J Gen Intern Med 1993;8:543-8.
32. Bernier MJ. Developing and evaluating printed education materials: a prescriptive model for quality. Orthopaedic Nursing 1993;12:39-46.
33. Arthur VAM. Written patient information: a review of the literature. J Adv Nurs 1995;21:1081-6.
34. Silberg WM, Lundberg GD, Musacchio RA. Assessing, controlling and assuring the quality of medical information on the Internet. Caveant lector et viewer - let the reader and viewer beware. JAMA 1997;277:1244-5.