Objective: To explore patients' views about what they would or would not like to read on the computer screen, and how this might be managed.
Design: A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with patients who had recently consulted, and who were representative of the age-sex structure of our practice population.
Setting: Primary health care, patients' homes.
Patients: 30 patients aged 18-89 years.
Main outcome measures: Patients were likely to state that information about lifestyle (e.g. smoking and drinking) might be helpful to read on condition that it had been provided by the patients themselves, and not by a third party. Most patients would not want to read personal comments. Nearly half of the patients expressed concern about seeing a serious illness on the screen, especially if it had not been fully discussed in advance. Over a third were concerned about seeing a mental illness listed. They suggested that these labels were subjective, confusing, and likely to be rejected by patients.
Conclusions: Doctors need to develop and evaluate ways by which patients gain access to reading about their problems on desk-top computers, and devise strategies whereby this can be integrated constructively with information exchange in the consultation.