Computer-assisted versus oral-and-written family history taking for identifying people with elevated risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus

We know that diabetes runs in families. For this reason, healthcare professionals routinely take family histories to help them identify people who are at high risk of developing diabetes. Patient histories may be recorded manually by using oral-and-written methods or via a computer-assisted history taking system. Computer-assisted history taking systems can be used by healthcare professionals, or directly by patients, as in the case of, for example, pre-consultation interviews. They can be used remotely, for example via the Internet, telephone  or on-site. They draw on a range of technologies such as personal computers, personal digital assistants, mobile phones and electronic kiosks; data input can be mediated via, amongst others, keyboards, touch screens and voice-recognition software. Although computer-assisted history taking methods were first used in the 1960s we are still not certain about their effects on history taking in people with a high risk to develop diabetes. Therefore, we reviewed the literature to find studies that compare the effects of oral-and-written methods to those of computer-assisted family history taking on the quality of collected data as well as on allowing us to identify people who are at risk of developing diabetes. In this occasion we found no randomised controlled trials that investigated the above. We therefore suggest that more primary research is required in this area to allow an informed decision to be made by physicians, patients and policymakers.