First Medical Communications logo
Subscribe to Feed 27 July 10 | Comments (0)

Simple web innovations still deliver big results

web innovation questionnaireAmid ongoing hullabaloo about social networking possibilities, medical apps and iPad detailing, it’s easy to forget the primary power of the internet remains its ability to disseminate information. One company still grasping this basic fact is Pfizer, which made significant headlines recently with the relatively straightforward decision of putting two widely used mental health assessment tool online for the public to use.

The company’s decision to distribute the questionnaires was undoubtedly simplified by the fact that Pfizer educational grants back in the 1990’s actually helped US researchers draw them up in the first place. Indeed, such is the ubiquity of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) and the General Anxiety Disorder questionnaire (GAD-7) that both can both be found online with a bit of searching. However, this doesn’t detract from the benefits the company will surely draw from medical and patient stakeholders by officially handing them over to the general public in an unrestricted manner. Pfizer’s chief medical officer Freda Lewis-Hall predicted encouraging broader usage of these important patient assessment aids would help both healthcare providers and their patients. She added: “We are listening to the needs of the mental health community and doing what we can to provide the tools needed to make the best possible healthcare decisions.”

The PHQ is self-administered questionnaire used to measure depression-related symptoms. It is employed as a standard measure of depression risk by the NHS and the US Department of Defence, and commonly used by clinicians and researchers. Also a self-administered questionnaire, GAD-7 is used as a screening tool and severity measure for generalised anxiety disorder. The PHQ and GAD-7 tests are now available at phqscreeners.com where they have been translated into nearly 80 languages, including traditional Chinese, Mandarin and Korean. The site also includes comprehensive instructions on how to use the questionnaires, articles about them and a dedicated email contact.

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.