english.prescrire.org > Spotlight > Archives : 2012 > Improving healthcare by sharing patients' real-life experiences

Spotlight: Archives

Every month, the subjects in Prescrire’s Spotlight.

2012 : 1 | 30 | 60 | 90

Improving healthcare by sharing patients' real-life experiences

Two UK websites allow patients and those close to them, as well as healthcare professionals, to share the diversity of personal experiences around health and illness.

The British websites www.healthtalkonline.org and www.youthhealthtalkonline.org (for 15- to 25-year-olds) bring together selected interviews with patients, based on a qualitative research protocol developed at the University of Oxford. The interviews are based on specific questions asked by a team of around 15 social sciences researchers specialising in sociology, anthropology, psychology or public health.

The site has several aims: to help patients share their own experiences so that they feel less alone in facing the problems they encounter; providing answers to patients' questions in order to facilitate shared decision-making between healthcare professional and patients; supplying reliable information;  providing   source material for continuing education of healthcare professionals; and promoting better communication between healthcare practitioners and patients. The researchers also look at the effects an illness can have on those close to the patient: its impact on working conditions, social life and personal relationships.

The information available in 2012 covers around 60 clinical situations, with some 2 500 interviews, accompanied by general information about the illness in question, its diagnosis and the therapeutic options.

There is no advertising on these websites. DIPEx charity, which originated these sites, is a not-for-profit charitable foundation which receives grants and contributions but does not accept “assistance” from pharmaceutical companies.

These sites are frequently quoted in the medical press and mainstream media in the UK. Their success shows that the same approach would probably be valid in other countries, including France.

©Prescrire 1 August 2012

Special issue of La revue Prescrire "Travailler ensemble" Rev Prescrire 2012; 32 (346). Click here for the table of contents (in French).
For more information:

Contents of the special issue
of La revue Prescrire
"Travailler ensemble pour
mieux soigner. Pourquoi ?
Quand? Comment ?"
Free (in French)

See also:

healthtalkonline website
www.healthtalkonline.org

site for 15- to 25-year-olds
www.youthhealthtalk.org