Can self-care health books affect amount of contact with the primary health care team?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flow of participants through each stage of the study

Table I.  Age and sex distribution of participating patients by treatment arm.

			Treatment arm^1
			Control	Healthwise book	NHS Direct book	Total
Male	Age Group	16–19	7	8	8	23
		20–29	24	24	21	69
		30–39	32	33	40	105
		40–49	37	32	26	95
		50–59	30	33	44	107
		60–69	28	28	19	75
		70–79	27	17	13	57
		80–89	5	6	4	15
		90 +	0	0	1	1
	Total
Female	Age group	16–19	14	13	7	34
		20–29	71	73	76	220
		30–39	110	144	126	380
		40–49	117	115	131	363
		50–59	76	71	75	222
		60–69	36	33	25	94
		70–79	27	19	31	77
		80–89	7	10	11	28
		90 +	0	1	1	2
	Total		458	479	483	1420

¹Difference between age distributions of groups is not statistically significant (males p = 0.456, females p = 0.536).

Table II.  Distribution (%) of reported likelihood of self-care and use of GP service at 3 and 12 months by book group.

		Healthwise book		NHS Direct book
	Months into study	3m n = 350	12m n = 318	3m n = 282	12m n = 253
Did using the book make you more or less likely to try to deal with the problem yourself?	1(More likely)	25.7	23.0	22.0	24.1
	2	36.3	34.6	28.7	30.0
	3 (Not more nor less likely)	27.7	30.8	34.8	29.2
	4	4.9	5.7	6.7	9.1
	5 (Less likely)	5.4	6.0	7.8	7.5
	Total%	100.0	100.1	100.0	99.9
Did using the book make you more or less likely to contact the practice?	1 (More likely)	7.6	10.3	12.7	12.1
	2	9.0	9.0	6.9	13.7
	3 (Not more nor less likely)	37.9	36.8	40.0	34.8
	4	27.7	29.7	22.2	24.2
	5 (Less likely)	17.8	14.2	18.2	15.2
	Total%	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Table III.  Annual consultation rates by age and sex and study arm.

	Males		Females
Study Arm	Annual rate	n	Annual rate	n
Ages 16–34
Control	3.10	48	4.96	140
Healthwise book	2.89	45	5.30	178
NHS Direct book	2.58	43	5.47	144
Ages 35–59	p = 0.809		p = 0.642
Control	4.11	82	5.06	248
Healthwise book	4.24	85	5.40	238
NHS Direct book	4.32	96	5.60	271
Ages 60 +	p = 0.983		p = 0.253
Control	5.73	60	7.41	70
Healthwise book	5.55	51	6.33	63
NHS Direct book	7.62	37	7.32	68
	p = 0.033		p = 0.270

p-values correspond to test of differences between group means by Kruskal–Wallace test.