Can public consultation effectively optimise the design of a patient information leaflet about breast magnetic resonance imaging

Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) involves multiple aspects that are unique to a medical environment and may seem frightening and strange to a person from a non-medical background (the tunnel, no credit cards, keys or watches, loud noises, intravenous pump injector). The purpose of an information leaflet is to inform people about what they should expect, and to prepare them for the experience. During public consultation about breast MRI, we discovered that women considered the current information provided by the NHS (from several different hospitals) to be inadequate. They told us that their experience of the process of breast MRI had been more distressing that it would have been had they been better informed. We decided to ask their advice on the design of an information leaflet to see if it could be optimised to better prepare women for the experience.