A RANDOMIZED TRIAL OF PROVIDING HOUSE STAFF WITH PATIENT SOCIAL-HISTORY INFORMATION - EFFECT ON PATIENT OUTCOMES

The purpose of this project was to assess if providing physicians (hou se staff) with routine comprehensive social history information on the ir patients will improve patient outcomes. Comprehensive social histor y information was gathered over a 5-month period on 134 consecutive pa tients. Patients were randomized to have social history information pr ovided or not provided to the resident physician caring for them. Outc omes of interest were: patient satisfaction, length of stay, and early unplanned readmission. Analysis was with analysis of covariance, cont rolling for patient severity of illness and amount of social history i nformation documented by the house officer: Outcomes were the same for patients for whom house staff were provided social history informatio n versus those for whom the information was not provided The authors c onclude that providing house staff with routine comprehensive social h istory information did not influence patient outcomes.