Supporting consumer involvement in decision making: what constitutes quality in consumer health information?

The promotion of consumer involvement in decisions about individual health care is now high on many health policy agendas, but the structures to support it are not all in place. While it is generally accepted that information to support consumer involvement should be of good quality, the question of what constitutes quality in such information packages is far from settled. Debate around this issue should consider the various theoretical perspectives which relate to the nature and purpose of consumer involvement in health care decision making, and the contexts in which information is used. If we are to judge the quality of information within a consequentialist framework, we need empirical research evidence about the effects of information provision. Until such evidence becomes available, we can only hypothesize about what makes for quality. In this paper we discuss some dimensions of quality which are suggested by a consequentialist perspective.