Patients' uses of information as researchable domains of social practice

In this article we argue that research into information for patients has to extend beyond an evaluation of particular information resources to studies of how those resources are engaged with, made sense of and used in practice. We draw on empirical data collected in the course of a study of a patient information resource designed for breast cancer patients in Liverpool and Newcastle in order to demonstrate the limitations of a restricted focus on information resources alone - namely, that it does not take into account the specific ways in which information is incorporated within what patients do as the grounds of 'further inference and action'. Our interest is less in discussing the strengths and weaknesses of this particular resource than in explicating some neglected aspects of the commonplace ways in which patients 'work' with information. We conclude by sketching some broad features of those 'reading' and 'linking' practices, the study of which, we believe, would help us as researchers to explicate the 'problem of information' as it is actually encountered and resolved by patients in realworld settings for their own practical purposes. Taking our lead from ethnomethodological studies and related research in various fields, we argue patients' uses of information are social practices that can and should be treated as researchable phenomena.