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Health Advice From Your Digital Self
CIHR-funded researchers are
developing an animated, web-based program that will
help patients with rheumatoid arthritis find the
best treatment option for their condition
Consider this – you've just been
diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The doctor
gave you information but, like many Canadians,
you've looked for more on the Internet. Now you have
too much information; what's accurate and what
applies to you?
One
out of every 100 Canadians will develop RA at some
point in their lives, and many will face the same
problem of too much information and not enough
answers.
With
support from the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research (CIHR), a group of researchers at the
University of British Columbia and the Arthritis
Research Centre of Canada in Vancouver is creating
an interactive tool that could help provide the most
up-to-date information about treatment for patients
with RA.
Led
by clinical epidemiologist Dr. Linda Li and social
worker Paul Adam, this team is taking lessons
learned from the field of “edutainment” to make it
easier for patients to learn more about RA and their
treatment options. They've teamed up with
instructors and graduate students at the Centre for
Digital Media in Vancouver to create the Animated,
Self-serve, Web-based Research (ANSWER) tool, an
innovative program that will eventually be posted on
The Arthritis Society's website.
“Everyone has an explanatory model in their minds
that they use to make decisions,” says Adam. “But as
they are presented with more information, the model
becomes more complex and it becomes harder to figure
out what to do. Making matters worse, there is a lot
of inaccurate information (about arthritis) out
there.”
According to Li and Adam, patients are more likely
to learn from hearing and seeing another patient
experiencing a similar situation. With ANSWER,
arthritis patients choose an RA “storyline” that
matches their own situation.
Once
they've selected a storyline, they will watch an
animated character with RA experiencing the
thoughts, feelings and issues that are common to
people who are newly diagnosed. They can also access
current, evidence-based information that will help
inform their treatment decisions and clarify their
concerns about the treatment.
“After they've completed a brief questionnaire and
been assigned a storyline, a process that takes
about 20 minutes, the patients can use the program
to find information tailored to their condition and
print out a one-page report with their concerns,
questions and initial decisions about treatment.
They can then take this report to discuss with their
doctor,” says Li.
ANSWER is not intended to replace a doctor's input,
but rather to improve patient-doctor communication.
Li and Adam hope that if the first version of the
program is successful, it could later be expanded to
help arthritis patients from various ethnic
backgrounds communicate with their doctors, or even
help people with other types of chronic diseases
make important treatment decisions.
At a Glance
Who:
Dr. Linda Li and Paul Adam at the University of
British Columbia.
Issue: Many newly-diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis
patients have trouble finding reliable information
about their treatment options.
Solution: These CIHR-funded researchers are working
with the Centre for Digital Media to develop an
animated, web-based program that will help arthritis
patients find accurate, relevant treatment
information.
Impact: The program, known as ANSWER, could improve
doctor-patient communication and help arthritis
patients make informed choices about their
treatment.
Copyright News Canada
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“Everyone has an explanatory
model in their minds that they use to make
decisions” |
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