Vasumathi Sriganesh
Director, QMed Services

It was the year 1980. I was jubilant – having become pregnant after almost three years of marriage. Like any young girl I was thrilled, but also nursed some doubts and fears. Till a sister-in-law in the US, sent me a simple book about pregnancy. It cleared most of my doubts, and definitely all my fears!! After the initial nausea, I enjoyed every minute of my pregnancy. And later circulated it to all girls in the family during their pregnancies. Each one of them claimed that it made a difference. And so did the respective husbands!!

Doctors have been teaching patients about health and illnesses for years and so have chemists.

While there is nothing to beat the ideal – “direct education from doctors and nurses”, it is simply not practical to expect a huge amount of time from these providers today – we are reeling under a terrible doctor-patient ratio.

Now we have TV Channels and the Internet that have become additional media for health professionals to communicate with patients. Books and libraries have been a very major source of health information in developed countries, but in India books themselves came in late, and libraries are probably thought of last.

Let us check out the role of information resources in Information Prescription.

Books, CDs, pamphlets, videos etc are the best educational tools especially if they are used in addition to the doctors’ teaching. We may forget some of the doctors’ words as soon as we leave his room and shut the door, but a book or a pamphlet could be checked repeatedly till we are sure of what we want to know. We can always ask the doctor, nurse on any healthcare professional, if we have specific doubts.

How can a patient or a health consumer judge a resource? Check out the following:

1.       The “source” - the author / publisher / organization that has created the resource. The creator should be someone with a good background – a combination of being qualified, having a good history, being well known. Most important – the resource should be authentic.

2.       How recent the publication is - Usually the more recent it is, the better – exceptions being for historical value items / classical works, and for very general topics like diets and exercise. Of course, even in these – the resource should not be very old.

3.       Ease of use: You should be able to find information easily. If it is a printed resource, there should be a good Table of contents, and an index. If it is a computer-based resource, then check how easy it is to navigate and how well the search button works.

4.       Purpose: Does the source intend to teach with “no strings attached”, or does it intend to promote or endorse some commercial product.

The above check points are more of a guideline; for example if a company that manufactures an anti-diabetic drug brings out a book about diabetes, it does not mean that you need to reject the resource. You only may need to verify certain facts, just in case there was more focus on promoting the product than on teaching about the disease.

Having got through these checklists, it is important “Not to take anything for granted” – in other words not to blindly accept what you read – the actual content created by an author. While you need not be overly suspicious of everything that you come across, there is a process called Critical Appraisal. Broadly this goes as follows:

	Established	Not Established
Valid	Accept / Adopt	May accept, but recognize that more research may be required
Not Valid	Exercise caution. Look for better alternatives. Or else decide if it is worth the risk of following advice	DISCARD

(This Evidence Grid has been sourced from a presentation by Dr. Arjun Rajagopalan - Medical Director, Sundaram Medical Foundation, Chennai, with permission)

Any information that falls in the 2nd and 3rd quadrant, calls for some decision-making - and it would do well to discuss with your family doctor or doctor friend. Remember that no medical intervention is 100% fool proof - there is God / Nature / Destiny to create unexpected situations

Let us now look at the role of libraries in Information Prescription:

Libraries that handle health information for lay people may be medical libraries, public libraries or special consumer health libraries like HELP. In countries like UK and USA, all three types of libraries handle a consumer health collection and service. In India, we are still behind, there are very few resource centers, and HELP is unique.

A library's role is not just to have a collection of books and related items. The library has to constantly check and discard any material that is outdated. And also to add new items, choosing carefully, based on criteria defined above. The library collection has to be such that people who read or use the resources need not have to worry about the authenticity (unlike many resources on the Internet).

In addition to developing a useful collection, the library needs to be a place where a person knows for sure that he will get all the help possible in finding what he needs. For this, a good librarian has to ensure that the collection in the library is professionally catalogued, and is an easy tool for the user to find information. The librarian needs to know about a whole lot of resources - not only what is in the library, but those that are on the Internet, and further how to access those that can be reached for through the Internet (example - other library resources). Today's librarian has to have a strong technology focus in providing services, both directly to the client, as well as indirectly while working with information resources. This is an area that calls for constant update of professional knowledge.

Apart from knowing all this, the librarian and the library as a whole has to be really dedicated to the cause of information prescription / information therapy. The institution needs to do all it can to welcome users, reach out to users who cannot come over and exude warmth and caring in providing the services - remember many information seekers may be in a stressed state of mind - either due to worry or even due to embarrassment. There is also a real need to market such services and activities - most people are unaware of the tremendous potential of an excellent library service. Gone are the days when people think of a library as a "Must visit" venue.

While the Internet is a boon, there is a flip side too - so much hype has been made about it, making it seem like the "Instant answer providing machine", that a huge number of people seem to believe that there is no need for libraries. Nothing can be further from the truth. There is certainly a call for constantly reorienting library services in Information Prescribing, but there is an equally major call for all information seekers to remind themselves - "Reach out to a library". And the library, its services and most importantly the right information will reach out to you!