TummyTrials

Abstract

Diagnostic self-tracking, the recording of personal information to diagnose or manage a health condition, is a common practice, especially for people with chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many who attempt diagnostic self-tracking have trouble accomplishing their goals. People often lack knowledge and skills needed to design and conduct scientifically rigorous experiments, and current tools provide little support. To address these shortcomings and explore opportunities for diagnostic self-tracking, we designed, developed, and evaluated a mobile app that applies a self-experimentation framework to support patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in identifying their personal food triggers. TummyTrials aids a person in designing, executing, and analyzing self-experiments to evaluate whether a specific food triggers their symptoms. We examined the feasibility of this approach in a field study with 15 IBS patients, finding that participants could use the tool to reliably undergo a self-experiment. However, we also discovered an underlying tension between scientific validity and the lived experience of self-experimentation. We discuss challenges of applying clinical research methods in everyday life, motivating a need for the design of self-experimentation systems to balance rigor with the uncertainties of everyday life.

The Importance of Starting With Goals in N-of-1 Studies

“…Across this research, we have surveyed 1,396 people with chronic conditions, and conducted interviews, participatory design sessions, or focus groups with 108 people with chronic conditions and 32 health providers (9,(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). We also draw on three field deployments of novel prototype systems with 48 people (22,23). Although most these studies were grounded in specific conditions (irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, juvenile idiopathic arthritis) or health behaviors (sleep, healthy eating), we anticipate the implications of this research apply broadly to n-of-1 studies.…”

Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking

“…Rooksby et al [15] characterise these self-tracking practices as 'lived' -enmeshed in everyday life -and identify overlapping selftracking styles, such as documentary tracking and diagnostic tracking. While Elsden et al [19] have provided a design perspective on documentary tracking, highlighting self-expression and remembering, Karkar et al [32] have examined diagnostic tracking in the context of detecting individualised food triggers in irritable bowel syndrome. People gain self-awareness through self-tracking, and use technologies to develop or maintain good physical and nutritional practices [35].…”

Mo2049 – Augmenting Gastrointestinal Health: A Deep Learning Approach to Human Stool Recognition and Characterization in Macroscopic Images

“…Diagnostic self-tracking, tracking to answer a specific question, could enable them to identify specific lifestyle modifications that could reduce symptom severity [2]. In 2017, Karkar et al developed TummyTrials , a self-experimentation app to support patients suffering from IBS [5]. TummyTrials uses single-case experimental designs (SCD) to help patients in designing, executing and analyzing self-experiments to detect specific foods that trigger symptoms.…”