Healthcare
Thuisarts.nl
Thuisarts is a partnership of the Dutch College of General Practitioners with the Federation of Medical Specialists and the Dutch Patient Federation. The site states that it gives clear information in plain language and is made by more than seventy people: doctors, writers, data specialists and researchers. Its content comes from associations of doctors and other care professionals, who investigate which treatments and advice are best and record that in guidelines; when a guideline changes, the new information reaches Thuisarts too. Alongside texts on complaints and illnesses there are videos, images, decision aids, decision cards and a search route by body part.
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What this source does not give you
Thuisarts is public information, not a professional guideline. The literature, the trade-offs and the strength of evidence are not there; they remain in the underlying guideline of the professional body. Citing a Thuisarts page as evidence means citing a lay summary rather than the source it rests on. The site also gives general information and does not answer an individual situation.
Frequently asked questions
- Who makes Thuisarts.nl?
- It is a partnership of the Dutch College of General Practitioners with the Federation of Medical Specialists and the Dutch Patient Federation. More than seventy people work on it: doctors, writers, data specialists, researchers and others. That composition explains the setup: it is not a consumer health magazine but a translation of the professions' guidelines, made together with those professions.
- What is the information based on?
- On the guidelines of associations of doctors and other care professionals in the Netherlands. Those associations investigate which treatments and advice are best and set that out in guidelines; Thuisarts converts it into plain language. Maintenance follows the same route: when a guideline changes, the new information reaches Thuisarts too. The evidence itself is not there — for that you go to the guideline.
- Can I use Thuisarts.nl as a professional source?
- Not as evidence. Thuisarts is the lay translation; the professional version lives in the Dutch GP standards and in the Federation of Medical Specialists' guideline database. For a conversation with a patient Thuisarts is often exactly the right material, because it is written to be understood. The mistake lies in the reversal: passing off a lay text as a guideline.
- What are decision aids and decision cards?
- Two separate sections alongside the ordinary information texts, videos and images. They are meant to set the available options side by side in a structured way within the conversation between patient and care professional, not to make a choice on anyone's behalf. For our use that means: refer to them as an aid to the conversation, not as its outcome.