Information about health care effectiveness : an introduction for consumer health information providers

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This book provides an introduction to the concept of evidence-based health care and considers how consumer health information providers might identify and obtain good quality research-based information about health care effectiveness. It explains why there is so much interest in providing people with information about health care effectiveness and involving them in decisions about their care, and highlights some of the practical and ethical issues which this raises for consumer health information providers. A case study of evidence-based health care and the patient's perspective using benign prostatic hyperplasia as an example is given. The authors then explain the concept of evidence-based health care, and discuss what this approach to consumer health care information involves in practice. A brief account of the possible effects of sharing information about health care effectiveness with consumers is given; the authors then focus on the practical issues of how consumer health information providers can best share research-based information about health care effectiveness with consumers. The book concludes with a reference guide to useful sources of information about health care effectiveness and summary information sheets about sources which are known to be based on good quality research evidence.

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