Karkar Ravi, Schroeder Jessica, Epstein Daniel A, Pina Laura R, Scofield Jeffrey, Fogarty James, Kientz Julie A, Munson Sean A, Vilardaga Roger, Zia Jasmine
Computer Science & Engineering, DUB Group, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
Human Centered Design & Engineering, DUB Group, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst. 2017 May 2;2017:6850-6863. doi: 10.1145/3025453.3025480.
Diagnostic self-tracking, the recording of personal information to diagnose or manage a health condition, is a common practice, especially for people with chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many who attempt diagnostic self-tracking have trouble accomplishing their goals. People often lack knowledge and skills needed to design and conduct scientifically rigorous experiments, and current tools provide little support. To address these shortcomings and explore opportunities for diagnostic self-tracking, we designed, developed, and evaluated a mobile app that applies a self-experimentation framework to support patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in identifying their personal food triggers. TummyTrials aids a person in designing, executing, and analyzing self-experiments to evaluate whether a specific food triggers their symptoms. We examined the feasibility of this approach in a field study with 15 IBS patients, finding that participants could use the tool to reliably undergo a self-experiment. However, we also discovered an underlying tension between scientific validity and the lived experience of self-experimentation. We discuss challenges of applying clinical research methods in everyday life, motivating a need for the design of self-experimentation systems to balance rigor with the uncertainties of everyday life.
诊断性自我跟踪，即记录个人信息以诊断或管理健康状况，是一种常见做法，尤其是对于患有慢性病的人而言。不幸的是，许多尝试进行诊断性自我跟踪的人在实现目标时遇到困难。人们往往缺乏设计和开展科学严谨实验所需的知识和技能，而且当前工具提供的支持也很少。为了弥补这些不足并探索诊断性自我跟踪的机会，我们设计、开发并评估了一款移动应用程序，该应用程序应用自我实验框架来帮助肠易激综合征（IBS）患者识别个人的食物触发因素。“胃部试验”（TummyTrials）帮助人们设计、执行和分析自我实验，以评估特定食物是否会引发他们的症状。我们在一项针对15名IBS患者的实地研究中检验了这种方法的可行性，发现参与者可以使用该工具可靠地进行自我实验。然而，我们也发现了科学有效性与自我实验的实际体验之间存在潜在矛盾。我们讨论了在日常生活中应用临床研究方法所面临的挑战，并提出需要设计自我实验系统，以在严谨性与日常生活的不确定性之间取得平衡。
