Davey Heather M, Barratt Alexandra L, Butow Phyllis N, Houssami Nehmat
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, School of Public Medicine, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Patient Educ Couns. 2008 Apr;71(1):86-94. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2007.12.001. Epub 2008 Jan 30.
To determine if the content of written information for women undergoing diagnostic breast tests would change depending on the criteria used to decide what information should be included.
Questionnaire study eliciting the views of advocates, breast physicians, breast surgeons, general practitioners, people with an interest in ethics, and women who had undergone breast tests on information that should be provided to women undergoing diagnostic breast tests. Different criteria were used to determine what information should be included in the written information.
Advocates, breast physicians, breast surgeons, general practitioners, people with an interest in ethics, and women who had undergone breast tests held significantly different views about the importance of specific information items for women undergoing tests. Different methods of resolving these differences in views lead to the inclusion of different information in patient information material.
This study highlights the practical necessity for guidelines for developing written information to include details about how to resolve differences in opinions about what information should be included in patient material.
Further research is needed to determine the most appropriate way to decide the content of written information. In the meantime, developers of written patient information need to be cognizant of the effects of their decisions on the content of patient information.
