Salud e Internet o cómo conseguir pacientes crónicos bien informados y autónomos : el caso del EAP Mataró-6 (Barcelona, Cataluña)

The progressive consolidation of the use of ICT in today's society as well as free access to a great amount of health information on the Internet, favor the appearance of active and collaborator patients. The relationship "health professional-patient" is evolving into a new model in which adequate and quality information is provided to achieve expert, well-informed and independent patients. In Catalonia, the nursing staff in primary care develops welfare functions and promotion, prevention and health education activities and, therefore, their intervention is vital in this learning process. The aim of this paper is to describe a good practice related to health education and care for chronic diseases conducted by nursing professionals in a primary care team. The novelty of the proposal lies in the fact that a team member has dual training in nursing and documentation. This factor makes it possible to offer a quality service to patients with chronic diseases as they are provided with better health education because there is well trained staff who chooses the best sources of information and determines their suitability for each patient. In this paper, first, we present briefly the context in which this practice is developed from the point of view of the patient and their sociocultural environment and its relationship with health professionals; also we analyze the current situation taking into account the importance of ICT in access to quality information as the ultimate goal is not only that patients with chronic diseases can access information on available sources (web prescription), but also to advices that enable them to understand and evaluate information to support the decision making process. Next, we describe the work protocol followed in a family and community nursing center which includes from the first date in which initial contact is made with the patient to identify its profile (information needs but also the level of training) to subsequent follow-up visits in which doubts are resolved and the level of learning and autonomy is checked. Finally, as a result of this experience, we will propose some future lines of action in which it will have a special place a better use of the health and informative resources that already exist.