Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis, affecting around 1-2% of the population in the UK. Worldwide, it is increasing in prevalence due to a variety different factors. However, we know little about patients' experiences of this condition.

Our study therefore aimed to explore people's experiences of gout and to produce a section on gout for the website Health Talk Online. This award-winning website currently covers over 75 different health conditions and provides reliable, experience -based information about illnesses and health problems, for patients and health professionals. We carried out 43 semi-structured one-to-one interviews with a diverse sample of people with gout in the United Kingdom. Interviews were video- and/or audio recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically.

This presentation will focus on what patients told us about where they looked for information on gout, what sort of information they found and what was valued. People spent a lot of time looking for information when they were first diagnosed, with information about causes and how to prevent attacks being particularly important. Some people wanted to know more about medications and possible side effects, and many looked for information about diet. Some people wanted as much information as possible, while others preferred not to know too much. Many people found a lot of conflicting and confusing information about diet and complementary treatments on the internet.

Understanding the broad range of patient experience can be helpful to both patients and practitioners. For patients, knowing more about other people's experience can help them to make decisions about their own care. For practitioners, knowing more about patients' views and experiences may help them in supporting patient choices. This can also apply to other common inflammatory arthritis conditions and I will also talk briefly about a developing project on people's experience of polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR).

Disclosure of Interest None declared

DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.6112