News > Producing and disseminating health information

People approached to take part in cancer trials find patient information leaflets about the trials too long and difficult to understand, warns a study, which is informing new guidance on consent procedures. Researchers found that patient information leaflets (PILs) function to satisfy purposes other than their manifest function as a decision-facilitating tool. PILs are being made to serve purposes both as a prospectus and as a contract. Though PILs have value for some patients, most do not recognise these documents as operating primarily in their interests.

Following feedback from member organisations and consumers, The Information Standard website has been updated and is now live. The refreshed website has been designed to enhance the experience for visitors to the site. New features include a new searchbox on the homepage enabling visitors to the site to quickly find certified organisations and a new secured area for organisations that are going through certification "“ providing help and guidance for them.

This is the second of two articles describing the development of a resource aimed at people with diabetes, to help them prevent foot problems. The first article detailed the research and audit process and a series of focus groups with people with diabetes. This second article describes how the information resource was planned, written, and evaluated. It includes work to gain a consensus from health professionals about good footcare and preventative behaviour and user insight on the content, tone, style, and design and layout of the resource. The article concludes with some early evaluation of the project.

In developing a guidebook on osteoarthritis (OA), researchers collaborated with people who have chronic joint pain (users). But to advise, users need to be aware of and sensitive about their own state of knowledge and educationalists argue that adults sometimes lack such awareness. This paper reports on the experience of providing users with findings from qualitative research to increase awareness of their level of knowledge. The researchers believe this way of involving users by exposing them to qualitative research findings about lay experiences of living with OA effectively facilitated the users' contributions to the needs of those who have to live with OA, and they believe it has wider applications.

West Midlands Health Information Week (HIW) is a region-wide, multi-sector campaign to promote the good quality health resources that are available to the public and to encourage partnership working across sectors. This years HIW was held in July and included articles in local newspapers, work with local media and events ranging from health-themed toddler sessions and organized walks to large events with 20+ information stands. Sarah Greening PiF's regional co-ordinator in the West Midland coordinates the event. You can contact er if you would like to know more of see the feedback from the week.

NICE is gathering the opinions of patients and the public to help develop the ways it presents its guidance. They have launched a short online questionnaire, consisting of questions that will help gauge the awareness of clinical guidelines and experience of using them. The survey runs until 9 October and its questions cover the suite of clinical guideline documents NICE produces.

The role of information on patients' decision to non-adhere is important, yet not well explored. The objective of this research is to identify differences between perceived information needs for hypertension and medication to treat it, to explore the information channels used by patients and to test what type of information is more important to adhere to medication. Patients reported feeling better informed about hypertension (90%) than medication to treat it (80%). The doctor remains the dominant information source, while the Media and magazines on health issues were reported more frequently than the family and the pharmacist. Feeling well informed about medication for hypertension was a predictor of better adherence. Other determinants of adherence were the use of the Internet and the Media.

The BBC web site is reporting this week that Cancer Research UK is helping to edit Wikipedia entries on cancer, as there are problems with accuracy and clarity on some of the pages, and they may not be completely up to date. The Charity notes that though its website has pages of detail about a range of cancers, a search engine for the terms "Breast Cancer" puts it in eighth place on the results page, whilst Wikipedia came second; a trend it repeats across other cancers.

This Cochrane review finds that health professionals and consumers may change their choices when the same risks and risk reductions are presented using alternative statistical formats. Based on the results of 35 studies reporting 83 comparisons, researchers found the risk of a health outcome is better understood when it is presented as a natural frequency rather than a probability.

Airing Pain is the first internet radio show to tackle the problems of living with chronic pain. Produced by people in pain, for people in pain, Airing Pain is broadcast on the web at Able Radio.com fortnightly. Podcasts and CDs of each programme are available and remain available to listeners as a ready support system. Future shows will include topics such as self-management of pain, treatment options, staying active and pelvic pain. The programmes cover stories of people's own experience of pain, interviews, and Q and A sessions with healthcare professionals.