Le maladie du petit papier was a phrase used to describe the practice that some patients had in the past of writing down two or three questions to ask the doctor, often taken as a sign of neurotic preoccupation with ill-health. There are 105 Web sites for Osgood-Schlatter's disease alone and each of those Wen sites has numerous pages. As patients become better educated they wish more information. There has also been a welcome recognition in the past decade that they need not only more information but clearer information, and great strides have been taken to produce clearer information. For the 21st century, however, the priority will be to give patients information based on the best quality evidence.
Many factors influence the consultation, as shown in the diagram below.
Patient and clinician should base the decision on the best evidence available. Meeting the expectations of a range of patients Of course not every patient wants the same information or the same style of consultation and one study from America, summarised in the Journal of Evidence-Based Health Policy and Management illustrates this clearly. NHS Direct On Line NHS Direct OnLine will be a knowledge service for patients and the public, complementary and supplementary to the telephone service NHS Direct.