Article published in:
Information Design Journal
Vol. 24:2 (2018) ► pp. 131–150

Developing tools to support patients and healthcare providers when in conversation about obesity

The 5As Team program

| University of Alberta, Canada
| University of Alberta, Canada
| University of Alberta, Canada
| University of Alberta, Canada

People living with obesity suffer from multiple health issues, including diabetes and mental health problems. Misinformation about the complex nature of this condition greatly affects the way one manages obesity. This results in unrealistic expectations by both healthcare providers and patients. Effective obesity management must be individually tailored for each patient. The objective of this project was to improve four communication tools by co-designing them with patients. A co-design approach was used to improve the efficacy and applicability of the tools through a working collaboration between patients, care providers, and researchers. While most articles describe processes to create shared-decision making (SDM) tools which compare alternative diagnosis and treatment options, few papers describe models to create SDM tools which go beyond showing benefits and risks. In this paper, we describe our process and approach to the re-design of four of the 5As obesity tools. We hope this study provides a valuable model for other teams.

Keywords: obesity, weight management conversations, human-centred design, shared-decision making, tools
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The need for shared-decision making
    • 1.2The challenges of caring for patients living with obesity (and the need for SDM)
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Human-centred design and the design of SDM tools
    • 2.2Participants
    • 2.3Materials
    • 2.4Study design
    • 2.5Using dialogue prompters and provotypes to foster collective thinking
    • 2.6Observing the use of the tools and interviewing to evaluate performance
    • 2.7Data analysis
  • 3.Findings
    • 3.1Understanding the design problem
    • 3.2Co-designing the tools
      • 3.2.1Using role-playing to situate the use of the tool
      • 3.2.2Using dialogue prompters to foster participation
    • 3.3Observing performance
      • 3.3.1Observing the use of the tools
      • 3.3.2Interviewing to understand people’s perception about using the tools
      • 3.3.3Document analysis: Analyzing what was used and how it was used, and what was not used
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Practice implications
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 18 April 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.00004.noe
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