originally
posted on CANMEDLIB@morgan.ucs.mun.ca, 23 Jun 1999 11:19:46 -0700
by Jim Henderson
Dear Colleagues,
I am the Research Officer responsible for the DISCERN Project.
I am writing to announce the launch of DISCERN Online and to ask
for your help with some research we are conducting through our
new website.
DISCERN is a general set of quality criteria designed to enable
consumers and other health information users judge the quality
of written information on treatment choices. DISCERN also provides
quality guidelines for authors. The DISCERN instrument has undergone
a rigorous process of development and testing (see our article
in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 1999, 53,
105-111) and a handbook has been developed which acts as a user
guide and training resource. DISCERN is currently being used in
a wide variety of settings for screening and producing consumer
health information and for training consumers and professionals
in appraisal and shared decision-making skills.
We have recently launched the DISCERN website. The site provides free
online access to the DISCERN instrument and handbook. We are also
using the site to assess DISCERN's applicability to online health
information and to gather users' views on the quality of information
on the internet. Visitors to the site are encouraged to provide
feedback via the evaluation form and to participate in the online
discussion group.
We hope you will find DISCERN Online useful and would be grateful
for your views. Please visit our site and let us know what you
think about DISCERN or any other issues relating to the quality
of consumer health information on the internet.
Regards
Deborah Charnock
__________________________________________________________
Dr.Deborah Charnock
Division of Public Health & Primary Health Care
University of Oxford
E-Mail: deborah.charnock@dphpc.ox.ac.uk
URL: http://www.discern.org.uk