Electronic and computer-generated patient questionnaires in standard care.

Patient-derived measures of disease activity have been proven to be reliable, valid, sensitive to change, and less susceptible to placebo effects in the assessment of many rheumatic diseases. Traditionally, paper forms have been used to capture this information but with advances in technology and a growing number of computer users, computerized versions have been developed. The computerized patient-derived questionnaires have been shown to be valid and reliable in many studies. Despite a concern for the usability and acceptability among inexperienced computer users and certain subgroups, such as older persons, a majority of patients queried preferred the electronic versions and found them easy to use. In addition, these computerized versions offer several advantages over the paper format, including improved data capture with less ambiguity, less long-term cost, immediate scoring and availability of the results, and--most importantly--the ability for more frequent disease activity, efficacy, and safety assessments.