Patient-centered visualization on supporting patients’ decision-making

Objective: To develop and validate a patient-centered visualization approach to support decision-making by patients who are choosing between two hypothetic therapeutic options. Methods: Infographics that contrast two hypothetical drugs, Drug A (low benefit/low risk) and Drug B (high benefit/high risk), were developed based on the input of the clinicians and patients. We adopted a crowdsourcing approach to test the association of a stakeholder-informed infographic, versus text-based educational information, with audience understanding of the risks and benefits of therapeutic options and with decision-making concerning a particular therapeutic option. Results: The low benefit/low risk drug was consistently preferred over high benefit/high risk. The importance that people placed on potential benefits was consistently associated with medication choice. Perceived importance of medication harms was associated with medication choice only among low-risk patients. Information display (textual versus infographic) and user literacy were not associated with medication choice. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that patient-centered infographics can be developed using participatory design to support patient decision-making process. The potential benefits of a drug was the most consistent predictor of medication choice in the study. Practice Implications: Participatory design and crowdsourcing demonstrates promise to facilitate the participatory design of educational materials necessary for shared-decision making.