Objectives To determine whether in patients with chronic disease a patient-held medical record (PHR), compared to usual care, improves clinical care, patient outcomes or satisfaction.

Design Systematic review.

Data sources Databases searched were All EBM (The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, DARE CENTRAL), Medline, CINAHL and EMBASE from 1980 to 16 February 2009.

Study selection Two reviewers assessed comparative studies that compared paper-based PHR to usual care for inclusion using a priori study selection criteria.

Studies reviewed Four hundred and eighty-one articles were reviewed by title and abstract. Full text was retrieved for 120 articles. Fourteen studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were appraised using a priori criteria for methodological quality.

Results Fourteen studies were included in diabetes, oncology, mental health, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke and palliative care. The studies used a variety of designs of PHR and compared this with usual care. PHR were implemented with varying degrees of patient and staff support and education, mainly for six months or less. Outcomes included attitudes on the usefulness of PHR, the quality of information exchange, process indicators, and clinical and physiological indicators. The effectiveness of PHRs is generally of low or very low quality, with the majority of studies having a high risk of bias. These studies do not demonstrate a significant benefit of introducing PHR.

Conclusions There is no clear benefit of implementing a PHR, and due to medium to high risk of bias these findings should be interpreted with caution. More high quality studies are needed to evaluate properly the effectiveness of PHRs in chronic disease populations.