title: Take care: guidelines for patients with chronic hepatitis C.
abstract: Alcohol consumption has significant impact on the condition of the liver, by itself, and even more in conjunction with other liver diseases such as chronic hepatitis C. Drinking habits might be delicate issues to address and could harm otherwise satisfying communication. Therefore, we intended to outline guidelines for advising hepatitis C patients concerning alcohol consumption. Analysis of a relatively limited knowledge base revealed the complexity of the disease rather than statistically significant findings regarding consumption. Thus, we instead chose to suggest a set of patient educational guidelines, which could be implemented on the Internet, hypothesizing that a better informed patient will be more able to comply with restrictions concerning alcohol consumption. A brief ad hoc evaluation pointed out Internet as a favourable media to present the information. We also suggest a tentative algorithm for further development of clinical decision support systems addressing monitoring of chronic hepatitis C patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linkoping University, Sweden.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hedin
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Babic
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Frydén
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000517:prevention & control; D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D005103:Expert Systems; D005260:Female; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013548:Sweden