Automated personal health inventory for dentistry: a pilot study.

Background: The authors conducted a study to investigate the feasibility of having patients enter their health histories, or HHs, directly into a computer so the HHs then can be transferred into computer-based patient records. The authors examined a patient-completed, pen-based computerized HH questionnaire to determine if it is acceptable to patients, if patients answer sensitive questions on the HH questionnaire more forthrightly using a computer than a pen and paper, and if the availability of explanations and examples provided for each question on the computer questionnaire results in more accurate responses than on the paper version.
Methods: Fifty subjects completed two almost identical versions of a 78-item HH questionnaire, completing either the pen-based, computerized version first or the paper version first. After the subjects finished the questionnaires, they completed an opinion survey about using the computer to provide their HHs.
Results: Subjects responded favorably to the use of a pen-based computer questionnaire to provide their HH; 73 percent indicated that they would prefer to use it in the future rather than complete a paper questionnaire. The authors found that the overall reliability of answers was 93 percent with an average of 5.4 inconsistent answers between the two HH questionnaires.
Conclusions: HHs can be collected efficiently and reliably from patients using a computer. It is important, however, that oral health care professionals review the data provided on HHs with their patients regardless of method used to collect them.
Clinical Implications: Practices can expand the use of computers into more areas of patient care by having patients complete a computerized HH questionnaire. Computerized data capture is more legible, complete and efficient than a paper HH and can be imported directly into clinical data systems, thus avoiding data entry.