Study of the User Behaviour Caused by Automatic Recommendation Systems Call to Action

Abstract

Diagnostics accuracy and usability of symptom checkers have been researched in several studies. Their ability to set a correct diagnosis especially in the urgent cases is questionable. There is one aspect of symptom checkers that has not been deeply studied yet. It is their ability to motivate patients to follow up after receiving a direct recommendation and to decrease a load on the health care professionals. The goal of this research is to study how patients behave after receiving a recommendation from a symptom checker and motivation of this behavior. We studied how patients react on the symptom checker recommendations and the motivation behind this behavior. In total we invited 3615 patients to have a symptom checker screening; 2374 of them agreed to run a symptom checker screening; 867 of them agreed to participate in the study. The proportion of the patients who agreed to have a symptom checker screening. So, we can clearly see that symptom checker screening doesn’t result in a significant decrease of the load on healthcare professionals. This is supported by the quantitative study results. The patients emphasized the ease of use of the tool and clearness of the recommendations it gives. However, they perceived it as rather a second opinion tool or a tool that helps to prepare to the doctor’s visit.