Victoria A Shaffer1, Pete Wegier2, K D Valentine3, Sean Duan1, Shannon M Canfield4, Jeffery L Belden4, Linsey M Steege5, Mihail Popescu6, Richelle J Koopman4. 1. Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA. 2. Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, Humber River Hospital & University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3. Health Decision Sciences Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 4. Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA. 5. School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. 6. Department of Health Management and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of patient health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy on perceptions of hypertension control using different forms of data visualization. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants (Internet sample of 1079 patients with hypertension) reviewed 12 brief vignettes describing a fictitious patient; each vignette included a graph of the patient's blood pressure (BP) data. We examined how variations in mean systolic blood pressure, BP standard deviation, and form of visualization (eg, data table, graph with raw values or smoothed values only) affected judgments about hypertension control and need for medication change. We also measured patient's health literacy, subjective and objective numeracy, and graph literacy. RESULTS: Judgments about hypertension data presented as a smoothed graph were significantly more positive (ie, hypertension deemed to be better controlled) then judgments about the same data presented as either a data table or an unsmoothed graph. Hypertension data viewed in tabular form was perceived more positively than graphs of the raw data. Data visualization had the greatest impact on participants with high graph literacy. DISCUSSION: Data visualization can direct patients to attend to more clinically meaningful information, thereby improving their judgments of hypertension control. However, patients with lower graph literacy may still have difficulty accessing important information from data visualizations. CONCLUSION: Addressing uncertainty inherent in the variability between BP measurements is an important consideration in visualization design. Well-designed data visualization could help to alleviate clinical uncertainty, one of the key drivers of clinical inertia and uncontrolled hypertension.
OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of patient health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy on perceptions of hypertension control using different forms of data visualization. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants (Internet sample of 1079 patients with hypertension) reviewed 12 brief vignettes describing a fictitious patient; each vignette included a graph of the patient's blood pressure (BP) data. We examined how variations in mean systolic blood pressure, BP standard deviation, and form of visualization (eg, data table, graph with raw values or smoothed values only) affected judgments about hypertension control and need for medication change. We also measured patient's health literacy, subjective and objective numeracy, and graph literacy. RESULTS: Judgments about hypertension data presented as a smoothed graph were significantly more positive (ie, hypertension deemed to be better controlled) then judgments about the same data presented as either a data table or an unsmoothed graph. Hypertension data viewed in tabular form was perceived more positively than graphs of the raw data. Data visualization had the greatest impact on participants with high graph literacy. DISCUSSION: Data visualization can direct patients to attend to more clinically meaningful information, thereby improving their judgments of hypertension control. However, patients with lower graph literacy may still have difficulty accessing important information from data visualizations. CONCLUSION: Addressing uncertainty inherent in the variability between BP measurements is an important consideration in visualization design. Well-designed data visualization could help to alleviate clinical uncertainty, one of the key drivers of clinical inertia and uncontrolled hypertension.
Authors: Paul K Whelton; Robert M Carey; Wilbert S Aronow; Donald E Casey; Karen J Collins; Cheryl Dennison Himmelfarb; Sondra M DePalma; Samuel Gidding; Kenneth A Jamerson; Daniel W Jones; Eric J MacLaughlin; Paul Muntner; Bruce Ovbiagele; Sidney C Smith; Crystal C Spencer; Randall S Stafford; Sandra J Taler; Randal J Thomas; Kim A Williams; Jeff D Williamson; Jackson T Wright Journal: J Am Coll Cardiol Date: 2017-11-13 Impact factor: 24.094
Authors: Victoria A Shaffer; Pete Wegier; K D Valentine; Jeffery L Belden; Shannon M Canfield; Mihail Popescu; Linsey M Steege; Akshay Jain; Richelle J Koopman Journal: Med Decis Making Date: 2020-07-22 Impact factor: 2.583
Authors: Sarah T Hawley; Brian Zikmund-Fisher; Peter Ubel; Aleksandra Jancovic; Todd Lucas; Angela Fagerlin Journal: Patient Educ Couns Date: 2008-08-27