Teleneurology by Internet and Telephone

This is a study of patient information-seeking behaviour prior to referral from primary to secondary care which seeks to answer the following pragmatic questions: How many patients search the Internet for medical information prior to referral? How many patients call the NHS Direct telephone helpline prior to referral? The results include frequency of Internet access and use, and of NHS Direct awareness and use, use of these modalities over time, use according to patient gender and age and by gender and age over time. These data may be used to gauge the utility of these modalities of health information provision. Medical information on the Internet and the NHS Direct telephone helpline may be conceptualized as technologically-based modalities of care which transcend professional clinical boundaries. As such, the data reported may be of interest not only to neurologists but also to clinicians in all specialties who will inevitably encounter patients who have made similar self-directed searches for medical information prior to the clinical encounter. Data may be generalizable to apply to other clinical disciplines, and may perhaps be used to predict future use of these services. Data will also be of interest beyond the realm of purely clinical disciplines, since they are of relevance to health services research, to those planning the future configuration of health-related services, and possibly also to sociologists and political scientists with an interest in questions of health care provision.