Towards Adapting Questionnaires for Long-Term Online Dynamic Monitoring of Patients

Abstract

Dynamic monitoring of psychological constructs (e.g., emotions, self-efficacy, motivation) is essential for patients diagnosed with long-term medical conditions to promote health and well-being. Psychometrically validated paper-based questionnaires are not efficient for indicating dynamic changes and require face-to-face administration. Digital adaptation of questionnaires offers a potential solution for dynamic monitoring. Digital monitoring also has constraints, e.g., they need to deal with multiple questionnaires measuring the same psychological constructs and different target age groups. Selecting the appropriate questionnaires for digitalization is critical for measuring psychological changes. However, there is no methodological approach for adapting multiple questionnaires for digitalization. The current study aimed at a generalized methodological approach for designing a digital questionnaire-based engine for dynamic, long-term online health monitoring. A four-step methodological approach is proposed and utilized: i) Selecting and reviewing questionnaires based on specific characteristics (e.g., number of questions and sub-types, target age of patients); ii) Development of a conceptual hierarchy of constructs based on an appropriate psychological model (to facilitate the selection of a set of questions and sub-constructs); iii) Putting the pool of questions with markups into one database, and iv) Designing system rules that allow the clinician to select constructs and support the delivery of the appropriate questions to specific patients. A case study on diabetes has been selected to benchmark the application of the methodological approach. Thirty-four questionnaires measuring psychological constructs for children with diabetes were reviewed based on the specific characteristics, and eighteen questionnaires were selected. Next, the sub-construct for each variable was linked with an existing psychological model. Lastly, questionnaires were combined into one pool of questions intended for the dynamic monitoring of patients. As a result, we propose an approach to design dynamic, long-term online health monitoring questionnaires that can be defined on the level of system requirements.