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Asthma action plans are highly variable and do not conform to best visual design practices
S Gupta1, F T Wan, F M Ducharme
1Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. guptas@smh.ca
Summary
Asthma action plans show significant variability in content and visual design, potentially impacting patient usability and effectiveness. Future plans should incorporate evidence-based design principles for better outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Pulmonary Medicine
- Health Informatics
- Human Factors Engineering
Background:
- Asthma action plans are recommended for improving patient outcomes but have low physician delivery and patient utilization rates.
- Current asthma action plans exhibit considerable variability in both content and format.
- A key factor limiting effectiveness may be the inadequate consideration of visual design and usability principles in plan development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the content and format variations in existing asthma action plans.
- To assess the adherence of these plans to evidence-based visual design recommendations.
Main Methods:
- A global collection of 69 unique adult outpatient asthma action plans was gathered from various sources, including the internet, expert recommendations, and published literature.
- Inductive development of analytic criteria was employed for both format and content analyses.
Main Results:
- Significant variability was observed in the format of the collected asthma action plans.
- On average, plans met only 3.5 out of 8 evidence-based visual design recommendations.
- Content diversity was also noted, with differing descriptions of baseline clinical status and action point instructions.
Conclusions:
- The wide-ranging variability in asthma action plan content and format hinders direct comparability of research studies.
- Visual design elements significantly influence plan usability, adoption, and overall effectiveness.
- Future development of asthma action plans should integrate design evidence and expertise to enhance usability and impact.
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