The role of the family history in preventive medicine: an introduction for medical librarians.
Health professionals are collecting and charting data about the family history of their patients in order to determine if a predisposition to heart, stroke, cancer and other debilitating conditions can be detected or alleviated through patient education and preventive medicine. Family history-taking for the purposes of preventive medicine is introduced, along with a brief history of the field. The pedigree chart and the genogram are described and their use by health personnel is discussed. A brief search strategy on MEDLINE and a selected bibliography are presented to aid the health sciences librarian to find information on the family history, genograms or pedigree charts.
D005190:Family; D005192:Family Health; D005826:Genetics, Medical; D008523:MEDLARS; D008487:Medical History Taking; D008499:Medical Records; D011315:Preventive Medicine; D014481:United States