Health Cards to Assist Decision Making in Consumer Health Search

Area of Science:

• Information Science
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Consumer Health Search (CHS) presents challenges in decision-making for users.
• Health cards offer concise health concept summaries alongside search results.
• Existing interfaces lack support for complex diagnostic reasoning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of health cards in assisting CHS decision-making.
• To compare a traditional single health card interface with a novel multiple health card interface.
• To assess the utility of health cards for diagnosing health conditions and determining next steps.

Main Methods:

• A laboratory user study was conducted with simulated health scenarios.
• Participants used either a single or multiple health card interface to complete decision-making tasks.
• Task completion, accuracy, and user appraisal of health cards were measured.

Main Results:

• The novel multiple health card interface supports differential diagnoses.
• Health cards significantly improve decision-making accuracy in CHS tasks.
• User appraisal of health cards was evaluated in the context of multiple card presentations.

Conclusions:

• Health cards are effective tools for enhancing decision-making in consumer health search.
• The multiple health card interface offers advantages for complex diagnostic tasks.
• Further research can optimize health card design for improved user understanding and action.