Visualising emotion in support of patient-physician communication: an empirical study

Ma, Hua; Sun, Xu; Lawson, Glyn; Wang, Qingfeng; Zhang, Yaorun

Abstract

Patient-physician communication is a crucial aspect of clinical diagnoses and treatments. However, there are barriers to effective empathic practices, including consciousness, busy working rhythms, and difficulties recognising patients’ implicit emotional expressions. While previous research has attempted to support asynchronous medical conversations, this study has explored the use of emotion visualisation techniques for synchronous, face-to-face medical encounters. After interviewing doctors to understand user requirements, an emotion-visualisation prototype, EMVIS, was created. The prototype was evaluated in a study with 31 patients and 37 healthcare providers within different specialist groups using a contextualised Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and follow-up interviews. The results indicated that patients and physicians were generally accepting of emotion visualisation for medical encounters. Patients were more interested in their physicians’ attitudes and intentions, while physicians accepted the visualisation, but their requirements differed according to their skill levels and specialities. Hence, four supportive factors - emotional empathy, careful attention, human connection, and reflective conversation - elicited information on how EMVIS contributed to medical conversations. Five future opportunities for the emotion visualisation of medical conversations were discussed in respect of the human factors and potential requirements. These include communicating uncertainty, addressing user diversity, providing explanatory information, managing attention, and supporting negotiations.

Citation

Ma, H., Sun, X., Lawson, G., Wang, Q., & Zhang, Y. (2022). Visualising emotion in support of patient-physician communication: an empirical study. Behaviour and Information Technology, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2097954

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 29, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 8, 2022
• Publication Date: Jul 8, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 6, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 9, 2023
• Journal: Behaviour and Information Technology
• Print ISSN: 0144-929X
• Electronic ISSN: 1362-3001
• Publisher: Informa UK Limited
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 1-19
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2097954
• Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction; General Social Sciences; Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous); Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/8851841
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2097954?src=&journalCode=tbit20
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Behaviour and Information Technology on 8 July 2022, available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2097954?journalCode=tbit20