A team from Leeds university's division of academic pharmacy practice is to produce a systematic review of written patient information for the Cochrane Collaboration (www.cochrane.org).
The purpose of the review is to find out whether the provision of written information has any effect on patient knowledge and satisfaction in relation to prescribed and over-the-counter medicines.
In a statement, Dr Theo Raynor (head of the Leeds university pharmacy practice division), who is leading the review, said that the group decided not to look at adherence related outcomes, since the provision of information about a medicine could lead to either increased or decreased adherence by different patients. This made any overall effect on adherence difficult to interpret.
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organisation of health professionals and consumers which aims to help people make informed decisions about health care by co-ordinating the preparation and dissemination of systematic reviews. It developed in response to a call from a British epidemiologist (Professor Archie Cochrane) for such reviews. Professor Cochrane recognised that people who wanted to make more informed decisions about health care did not have ready access to reliable reviews of the available evidence.
Cochrane reviews are the principal output of the collaboration and the Leeds review has been registered with the consumers and communication review group, which is part of the Australasian Cochrane Centre, based in Melbourne, Australia (www.dhs.vic.gov.au/ahs/quality/cochrane.htm). This group is concerned with interventions which affect consumers' interactions with health care professionals.
Consumer participation is encouraged in the review process, so a participant in the Leeds review will be Mr Jeremy Henley (formerly of the British Diabetic Association). A further consumer referee is to be included in the editorial process for the full review.
In order to make the review as comprehensive as possible, the team is keen to hear from anyone who is aware of trials of written medicines information for patients which have not been published.
Dr Raynor can be contacted by e-mail at D.K.Raynor@leeds.ac.uk.