Presenting evidence to patients online: what do web users think of consumer summaries of cochrane musculoskeletal reviews?

Background: The Internet has the potential to be an effective medium for delivering health care knowledge to consumers. While computer usability research makes recommendations about how to present Web-based information generally, there remains no clear guidance on how to present specific forms of health care research evidence online in a way that facilitates understanding and good health care decision making.

Objective: The two goals of this study were to describe the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group's (CMSG's) process for developing online patient-focused summaries of systematic reviews and to evaluate the impressions of these summaries formed by users.

Measuring acceptability of clinical decision rules: validation of the Ottawa acceptability of decision rules instrument (OADRI) in four countries.

Background: Clinical decision rules can benefit clinicians, patients, and health systems, but they involve considerable up-front development costs and must be acceptable to the target audience. No existing instrument measures the acceptability of a rule. The current study validated such an instrument.

Can patient decision aids help people make good decisions about participating in clinical trials? A study protocol.

Background: Evidence shows that the standard process for obtaining informed consent in clinical trials can be inadequate, with study participants frequently not understanding even basic information fundamental to giving informed consent. Patient decision aids are effective decision support tools originally designed to help patients make difficult treatment or screening decisions. We propose that incorporating decision aids into the informed consent process will improve the extent to which participants make decisions that are informed and consistent with their preferences.

Cognitive and social issues in emergency medicine knowledge translation: a research agenda.

The individual practitioner is a linchpin in the process of translating new knowledge into practice, particularly in the emergency department, where physician autonomy is high, resources are limited, and decision-making situations are complex. An understanding of the cognitive and social processes that affect knowledge translation (KT) in emergency medicine (EM) is crucial and at present understudied. As part of the 2007 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on KT in EM, our group sought to identify key research areas that would inform our understanding of these cognitive and social processes.

Do physician outcome judgments and judgment biases contribute to inappropriate use of treatments? Study protocol.

Background: There are many examples of physicians using treatments inappropriately, despite clear evidence about the circumstances under which the benefits of such treatments outweigh their harms. When such over- or under- use of treatments occurs for common diseases, the burden to the healthcare system and risks to patients can be substantial. We propose that a major contributor to inappropriate treatment may be how clinicians judge the likelihood of important treatment outcomes, and how these judgments influence their treatment decisions.

The effect of two types of virtual reality on voluntary center of pressure displacement.

Voluntary movements result in internal perturbations of balance and equilibrium. One variable regulated during movement is the position of the center of pressure (COP). Sensory information from the visual, vestibular and somatosensory systems is used in establishing relevant frames of reference for postural control.