A collaborative filtering based recommender system for disease self-management

Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic disease that is diagnosed by observing raised levels of glucose in the blood. High levels of glucose in the blood damage many tissues in the body, thus bringing life-threating and disabling health complications. According to the World Health Organization, the number of people with diabetes is around 422 million, and the diabetes prevalence has been raising more rapidly in middle and low-income countries. People with diabetes must have periodic contact with healthcare professionals. However, it is necessary for them to have the skills, attitude, and support for self-management. In other words, people with diabetes should be active participants in the treatment. In this work, we present a system for diabetes self-management. This system deals with different subjects related to the control and management of glucose levels in the blood, such as diet, physical activity, mood, medication, and treatment. Furthermore, this system implements the collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm for generating health recommendations. This module was evaluated to measure its effectiveness providing such recommendations obtaining encouraging results. This evaluation involved the participation of real patients with diabetes and healthcare professionals.