Visualising Health: A Survey Exploring the Attitudes, Behaviours and Problems Faced Towards Personal Health Data Visualisations of Patients Living with Chronic Conditions in the UK.

While existing wearable technologies and mobile health apps make easy the collection of personal health data, they do not provide the means necessary for patients to visualise, better understand and make use of this data. Our research examined the following question: What are the behaviours and attitudes of patients living with chronic conditions when viewing personal health data (PHD) visualisations? A cross-sectional online questionnaire survey was conducted in the UK in the spring of 2022. A total of 152 patients with chronic conditions participated. Data was analysed descriptively and using Chi-square tests. The results showed that patients with diabetes viewed PHD more frequently compared to other conditions (p = .011). Patients with musculoskeletal diseases were more likely to have problems understanding PHD visualisations (p = .056). The most frequently viewed types of self-generated data were physical activity (p < .001), mental well-being (p < .001), sleep (p < .001), BMI or weight (p < .001) and healthy lifestyle data (p = .031), such as diet/nutrition plans, alcohol and smoking habits. The most common problems patients faced when viewing their PHD were: “Presence of too much or too little data” (40.7%), “Lack of customisation of the data visualisation” (40%), and “Lack of personalised information” (38%).