TreatmentExplorer: an Interactive Decision Aid for Medical Risk Communication and Treatment Exploration
Lyndsey R. Franklin, Catherine Plaisant, Kazi Minhazur Rahman, Ben Shneiderman · Interacting with Computers · 2014
Medical treatments carry unique benefits and risks which patients must understand in order to decide which option is best for them. Prior research has demonstrated that patients are ill-equipped to understand the statistical information presented to them through standard decision aids. We describe a prototype decision aid, TreatmentExplorer, which supports patients’ needs by presenting treatment outcome, onset of symptoms and treatment side effects using a novel graphic representation with staged animation and text-only narration. Our prototype also illustrates the use of a data-driven personalization approach by using electronic health record data. We report on expert reviews, a pilot study (|$n=24$|) and a main study (|$n=42$|), which characterize the benefits of TreatmentExplorer over a text-only decision aid as well as a version without staged animation, and conclude with guidelines for designers.