Users of a public arthritis information service and their needs

Brief interviews were conducted with 1670 users of the Arthritis Information Service of Alabama, a statewide toll-free telephone information service. The results showed the service users were significantly (p less than 0.01) different from both the adult population and from the estimated symptomatic population of the service area. Users tended to be female, symptomatic, white, older, and better educated than the adult population. The most frequent category of need was emotional support, followed by referral, symptom/test explanation, treatment explanation, self-help method, medication, and physician-patient communication. Informational needs were significantly related to the gender, age, and the reported diagnoses of the user. Our results suggested that telephone services for health promotion may need to make special efforts to reach nonwhite and less educated persons and to provide emotional support.