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First study asks patients how they assess information websites

1 September 2003

The Bupa Foundation has awarded a grant of over £40,000 to a study by University College London into what patients think of web-based information applications. The results could inform NHS policy, which sees web-based information sources for patients as central.

There has been an explosion in the number of websites and other web-based information sources for patients, yet there has been no research into how useful patients think these sources are. Now the group from University College London is to spend the next 12 months researching why patients use them and how they assess whether they are useful.

Said Dr Elizabeth Murray from the University's Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences, "Healthcare professionals and patients use different criteria to assess information materials. So far there has been very little input by patients into the development of websites and web-based information applications designed to give them information about medical conditions and health."

Researchers will harness the opinions of three groups of patients with chronic diseases, who will be asked to assess information sources and develop criteria for assessing them.

"The results of our study will be very relevant to NHS policy makers. The NHS has invested heavily in the provision of electronic information for both patients and professionals. It has also developed its Expert Patient Policy, which recognises the patient as the expert on areas such as their own health beliefs, determining the relative importance of specific health outcomes, and the effects of their illness on their life. A report on the policy implications of our findings will be submitted to the Department of Health," said Dr Elizabeth Murray.

Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen, governor of the Bupa Foundation and Bupa's medical director, said, "The Foundation has a particular interest in the role of patient choice and education in health care. We look forward to seeing the results of these studies over the coming years and hope they will benefit patients directly."

The Bupa Foundation is a charitable organisation founded in 1979 that exists to provide finance towards the prevention, relief and cure of sickness and ill health. The Bupa Foundation has awarded grants in excess of £8 million for medical research and healthcare initiatives. Earlier in the year the Bupa Foundation committed £600,000 to fund research projects looking at the impact of patient choice and education.