Interpreting Laboratory Results with Complementary Health Information: A Human Factors Perspective

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Patient Engagement
• Health Communication

Background:

• Increasing global demand for electronic access to personal health information, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Growing need for telemedicine and timely access to personal health data, including online laboratory (lab) results.
• Patient portals are becoming crucial for accessing and understanding health information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine citizens' perspectives on receiving high-quality information about a specific lab test (potassium) presented with a trend graph.
• To assess how participants managed, understood, and applied contextual information provided concurrently with lab results.
• To identify challenges in accessing and interpreting online lab values and supplementary health data.

Main Methods:

• Conventional content analysis of semi-structured interviews.
• Study involved Canadian participants (N=24).
• Examined themes related to presenting complementary information with lab results in the same display.

Main Results:

• Identified four key themes: Benefits of Collocated Information, Information Overload, Misinterpretation, and Confusion.
• Participants faced difficulties navigating and discerning supplementary health information alongside their lab values online.
• Concurrent display of contextual information and lab results presented challenges in comprehension and application.

Conclusions:

• Presenting additional contextual information with lab results can lead to information overload and misinterpretation.
• Effective design is crucial for patient portals to facilitate understanding of online health data.
• Further research is needed to optimize the presentation of online lab results and associated information for better patient comprehension.