Family health history (FHx) is one of the simplest and most cost-effective and efficient ways to collect health information that could help diagnose and treat genetic diseases at an early stage. This study evaluated the efficacy of collecting such family health histories through a virtual conversational agent (VCA) interface, a new method for collecting this information. Standard and VCA interfaces for FHx collection were investigated with 50 participants, recruited via email and word of mouth, using a within-subject experimental design with the order of the interfaces randomized and counterbalanced. Interface workload, usability, preference, and satisfaction were assessed using the NASA Task Load Index workload instrument, the IBM Computer System Usability Questionnaire, and a brief questionnaire derived from the Technology Acceptance Model. The researchers also recorded the number of errors and the total task completion time. It was found that the completion times for 2 of the 5 tasks were shorter for the VCA interface than for the standard one, but the overall completion time was longer (17 min 44 s vs. 16 min 51 s, p = .019). We also found the overall workload to be significantly lower (34.32 vs. 42.64, p = .003) for the VCA interface, and usability metrics including overall satisfaction (5.62 vs. 4.72, p < .001), system usefulness (5.76 vs. 4.84, p = .001), information quality (5.43 vs. 4.62, p < .001), and interface quality (5.66 vs. 4.64, p < .001) to be significantly higher for this interface as well. Approximately 3 out of 4 participants preferred the VCA interface to the standard one. Although the overall time taken was slightly longer than with standard interface, the VCA interface was rated significantly better across all other measures and was preferred by the participants. These findings demonstrate the advantages of an innovative VCA interface for collecting FHx, validating the efficacy of using VCAs to collect complex patient-specific data in health care.

Information on healthcare providers on the internet can be found in both public reports and/or anecdotal comments. Healthcare consumers rely more on the anecdotal comments than public reports as they are easier to understand, more engaging and convincing. However, the anecdotal comments can be misleading as they are based on a relatively smaller and less representative sample. Hence, it’s important to understand how users make sense of the anecdotal information and define the factors that influence their decisions. This study utilized the domain of dentistry, focusing on how the nature of the review and other decision aids affect the sensemaking process of healthcare seekers. We conducted a mixed-method study with twenty participants, finding the nature of the review (the text) to be the most influential factor and the wait time to be the least contributing factor in the decision.

Critical for the early diagnosis of genetic disorders, a Family Health History (FHx) can be collected in several ways including electronic FHx tools, which aid easy editing and sharing by linking with other information management portals. The user acceptance of such systems is critical, especially among older adults experiencing motor and cognitive issues. This study investigated two types of FHx interfaces, standard and Virtual Conversational Agent (VCA), using 30 young (between 18 and 30) and 24 older participants (over 60). Workload, usability and performance data were collected. Even though participants required less time to complete three of five tasks on the standard interface, the VCA interface performed better in terms of subjective workload and usability. Additionally, 67% of the older adults preferred the VCA interface since it provided context-based guidance during the data collection process. The results from this study have implications for the use of virtual assistants in FHx and other areas of data collection.

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Knowing and compiling your family health information is an important, cost-effective and efficient way to help your doctor screen and monitor for risks of genomic diseases such as cancer. There are several ways to collect family health history, including the use of digital records. Digital records can be helpful for sharing and updating information among family members. However, minimal research has been conducted to compare the different data collection interfaces. This study focuses on evaluating the user’s performance and preference between a conversational interface that we developed and a traditional interface for compiling family health history. Using a within-subjects design, twenty participants were asked to perform several tasks using both platforms. Although the conversational interface required more clicks, participants reported lower workload, higher performance and greater ease-of-use with this platform, and preferred the guidance of the virtual assistant.

Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients find respite in online communities for solutions and emotional support. This study aims to understand the characteristics of information caregivers of Alzheimer's 3 patients are searching for and the kind of support they receive through internet-based peer-4 support communities. Using a web crawler written in Python web programming language, we 5 retrieved publicly available 2500 random posts and their respective solutions from April 2012 to 6 October 2016 on the solutions category of the Caregiver's Forum on ALZConnected.org. A 7 content analysis was conducted on these randomly selected posts and 4,219 responses to those 8 posts based on a classification system derived from initial analyses of 750 posts and related 9 responses. The results showed most posts (26%) related to queries about Alzheimer's symptoms, and the highest percentage of responses (45.56%) pertained to caregiver well-being. The LIWC analyses generated an average tone rating of 27.27 for the posts, implying a negative tone and 65.17 for their responses, implying a slightly positive tone. The ALZConnected.org website has the potential of being an emotionally supportive tool for caregivers; however, a more user-friendly interface is required to accommodate the needs of most caregivers and their technological skills. Solutions offered on the peer support groups are often subjective opinions of other caregivers and should not be considered professional or comprehensive; further research on educating caregivers using online forums is necessary.

Recent times have seen an increase in the usage of anonymous social media. This freedom of anonymity has led people to write posts neglecting the potential consequences of their actions. Moreover, such information could be unreliable. This study investigated the level of trust and confidence level when participants viewed posts written on an anonymous social media. Using a between-subjects experimental design, 189 participants completed the study. The independent variables were, attitude of the yaks: supporting and non-supporting yaks, and decision aid: no sign aid, positive aid for supporting/negative aid for non-supporting yaks and positive aid for non-supporting/negative aid for supporting yaks. We found that positive decision aid for supporting yaks improved the likelihood rating, trust, and confidence level when compared to negative decision aid. It was easier for the participants to accept positivity than negativity.

Insurance loss prevention survey, specifically windstorm survey, is the process of investigating potential damages associated with a building or structure in the event of an extreme weather condition such as a hurricane or tornado. Windstorm inspection is a type of visual risk assessment survey performed to investigate and identify the risk factors that might result in severe damages in the event of extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes or tornados. This survey involves an engineer going to a site and inspecting the property according to a standard protocol. Though they follow the protocol, the inspection process is never straightforward. The engineers have to exercise their judgement and analytical skills while evaluating the property. This process depends highly on the skills and expertise of the engineer. This could result in certain biases and mistakes. This exploratory qualitative research investigated the sensemaking process of insurance risk engineers while performing windstorm surveys. A combination of convenient sampling and maximum variation strategy was used to recruit participants from a specific insurance company. Ten risk engineers with experience ranging from less than one year to 20 years (M = 4.7) were interviewed. Additionally, we identified a subject matter expert rom this insurance company. The subject matter expert performed a mock windstorm loss preventions survey. The mock inspection activity was video recorded. Following the mock inspection, a semi-structured interview protocol was developed to understand the sensemaking process of risk engineers. The recruited participants were interviewed via phone for 90-120 minutes. The interview responses were audio recorded and the recordings were de-identified (used numbers to identify the recordings). The responses were then transcribed by an external agency for analysis purpose. The qualitative data was analyzed following an inductive thematic approach, one of the most common qualitative data analysis methods (Padgett, 2011). The first author led the inductive coding process. The coding process was completed in two steps. In the first step, the researchers identified open codes from the transcripts and then the transcripts were coded individually and the percentage of agreement was calculated (38.4% across all transcripts). However, the coders reached complete consensus after discussion. In the next step the coding schema was updated based on the results of the first step of coding. The researchers coded the transcripts again and the percentage agreement was calculated (54% across all transcripts). The transcripts were then imported to ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis software. The relationships among codes were identified using the querying capability available in the software platform. Upon completing the analysis, the SME was approached to discuss the validity of our findings. The windstorm loss prevention survey is a skill-based inspection process requiring the physical presence of the risk engineers. One of the main challenges the engineers face is the environmental uncertainty. Forecasting risk in an extreme weather condition requires the knowledge of various factors including, but not limited to, the wind speed, building dimensions, building age, roof type, roof material, building occupancy and surface roughness. This is often overwhelming to the engineers leading to certain biases and errors. Moreover, the required information about these factors is not always available to the engineers. This further complicates the risk inspection process. The engineers will have to resort to their internal guidelines and assumptions to make recommendations in such conditions. However, the validity of such recommendations/findings is questionable because it is based on various unknown or uncertain factors. The insights from this study can be used to develop automated technologies that assist risk engineers while performing the inspection task. The primary objective of the design will be to minimize information overload and to reduce the cognitive demand on the risk engineers. The next step will be to develop a cognitive task analysis report to understand the needs of risk engineers in order to develop a system that best caters to their needs.