Computer-assisted history taking for diabetes

Two recent Cochrane reviews examine the role of computer-assisted history taking in people with diabetes. In the first review, Igor Wei and colleagues examine the role of computer-assisted history taking for dietary histories. They found that computer-assisted diet history taking was potentially as accurate as the conventional oral-and-written method and may potentially allow doctors to spend more time with their patients. However, the research on this topic was limited and they concluded that more primary research is required in this area.

In the second review, Yannis Pappas and colleagues examined the role of computer-assisted for identifying people with identifying people with a family history of of type 2 diabetes. Pappas and colleagues found no randomised controlled trials that investigated this area. They concluded that more primary research is required in this area to allow an informed decision to be made by physicians, patients and policymakers.

Although information technology potentially has a great role in improving the care of people with long-term illnesses such as diabetes, the full potential has not yet been realised and better evidence from high-quality studies is still needed.

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