Struggling to find health information you can trust?

Media Release July 2016

Struggling to find health information you can trust?

Visit: www.booksonprescription.co.nz

There is growing evidence that reading high quality self-help books can help people understand, manage and improve their health and readers in Otago and Southland really appear to be helping themselves! WellSouth’s Books On Prescription Programme has been successfully running since 2013 and the results of a recent evaluation, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, showed that the recommended self-help books had been taken out over 2000 times, with the most popular books being issued 100’s of times each!

Books on Prescription – a programme where high quality and professionally reviewed self-help books are provided to libraries and a network of health professionals can then ‘prescribe’ these books for common health problems - is delivered in partnership by WellSouth Primary Health Network and the libraries of Otago and Southland (though public libraries, tertiary institutions and prison libraries) to increase access to high quality health information.

The most popular book in the collection is John Kirwan’s All Blacks don’t cry – and JK himself is a big supporter of the scheme:

I'm really pleased to support "Books on Prescription: Read Yourself Well" here in the south which is helping communities get through the tough times. It's too easy to become weighed down by stress or poor health in this day and age - get along to your local library for books which have been reviewed by health professionals, including my books All Black’s Don’t Cry and Stand by Me.

The initial focus of the programme was mental health. However, the programme has been recently expanded to include books on other health topics, such as diabetes, heart disease, and lifestyle choices. A collection of creative fiction books has also been added, which have been shown to have mood-boosting effects.

As books are not for everybody, additional resources such as smartphone apps and videos have also been added to the website. The resources have been recommended and reviewed by health professionals, with reviews by both health professionals and consumers available online at www.booksonprescription.co.nz . The book collection can be found in your local library by searching the book title in the catalogue or asking a librarian about Books on Prescription.

There are now three strands of the programme:

• Read Yourself Well: Self-help reading has been shown to help manage a wide range of health problems. Free books are available from your local library that you may find useful on their own, or in conjunction with other options such as talking therapies and/or medication if appropriate.

• Listen Yourself Well: If you prefer to listen, we also have audio-books available to borrow in the libraries and some podcasts and videos on the website.

• T’App Yourself Well: These are smartphone apps that may be a useful tool to help understand and manage a health problem.

ENDS.

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