Questionnaires and Outcome Measures
The primary outcome, patients’ perception of helpfulness, and other views about the information materials were assessed immediately after the consultation using the Patient Assessment Questionnaire. This is a 7-item, 0- to 10-point scale that assessed the extent to which patients felt the material helped them to communicate with their physician, was clear or easily understandable, had the right amount of information, would be recommended to other patients, did not make them anxious, helped them to think of questions or concerns they had not previously thought of, and would be used in the future. The mean score across all the 7 individual patient ratings was calculated to obtain the global perception score, with higher score indicating more positive perception. The questionnaire has been used in several previous studies.