Targeted health information delivery framework : evaluation and feedback from potential client end-users

This paper describes the evaluation completed on a targeted health information delivery system from the perspective of potential client-type end-users. The system was created as a tool for Healthcare Practitioners (HCPs) to evaluate their clients and deliver relevant information, resources and interventions for the issue or behaviour change needed. The system provides the HCPs with the ability to create questionnaires on health behaviours, automatic staging of clients, and creation of stage relevant resources and interventions to be delivered to their clients. The clients complete the short questionnaire on a particular topic such as a health behaviour, is automatically staged by the system based on their answers, and given access to information, resources and interventions relevant for the particular stage they are currently at. The correctness of the staging engine within the system has previously been validated by HCPs, and this paper describes the evaluation and feedback from potential client type end-users. The purpose of the evaluation was to investigate if the participants found that using a tool like this system could help with previously identified issues in regards to health behaviours and accessing online health information - such as lack of awareness, information overload and not knowing which online health resources to trust. In addition, it was of interest to get the participants overall impression of this system. 27 participants were recruited to help give feedback and subjective evaluation of the perceived utility and usefulness of the system. Overall, the participants found the system very useful and rated the system highly.