Emotional responses to health data visualization

Abstract

The current development of telemedicine and m-health services has changed the way in which individuals monitor their health information. These services offer the possibility to receive and consult health data through computers or mobile devices at home, without medical support at any time. Could this new way of approaching our health data have an impact on our psychophysiological state? This study investigated with an experiment individual reactions to health data visualization on an interface. These reactions were investigated in terms of perceived emotion and stress, behavior and physiological changes (cardiac and electrodermal activities). This study compared individual responses to the visualization of different types of data: health data of the user, health data of another person and weather data. The statistical analysis was performed, based on ultra-short-term features for the physiological responses. The results confirmed that the visualization of personal health data entails the most important responses in terms of perceived stress, duration of data visualization and heart rate variability. Therefore, this study suggests that the conception of health interfaces would require particular attention concerning their content, their design, and their accessibility, in order to limit stress elicited by remote health data consultation.