Creating a Virtual Clinician Research Tool

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to engage an interdisciplinary team of researchers in creating "a virtual clinician research tool" to assist researchers in the study of initiating and maintaining health behavior change. Members of the research team will include social/health psychologists, an expert in interactive computer application development, a physician, a clinical psychologist, a registered dietician, a pharmacist, and members of an information technology team. This application is in response to RFA (RM-07-004) for "Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research via Methodological and Technological Innovation in the Behavioral and Social Sciences." The virtual clinician research tool will interact with research participants with one or more health risk behaviors via a user-friendly interactive computer program that provides them with national guideline based interventions for motivating healthy behavior. The virtual clinician will be designed to deliver a variety of intervention modules and can be configured to vary in content area (e.g., tobacco, physical activity, nutrition, alcohol, medication information), type and demographics of practitioners (e.g., physician, registered dietician, pharmacists), theory based clinical styles (e.g., self-determination theory, motivational interviewing, social learning theory), and real time assessment of theory based mediators (perceived autonomy, self- efficacy), affect scales, medication benefits and side effects, withdrawal symptoms, and self-reported health behaviors. The "prototype" virtual clinician will be created and piloted based on delivering an efficacious Public Health Service Tobacco Dependence Treatment and self-determination theory (SDT) tobacco abstinence and LDL-cholesterol lowering (National Cholesterol Education Program + SDT) intervention to improve the health of smokers (Williams, McGregor et al., 2006).The virtual clinician (VC) will serve to obtain relevant health history, interpret demographic (age, gender), behavior, and physiologic (fasting lipid profile and blood pressure) risk information. The virtual clinician will provide guideline standards for health, options for treatment and engage the participant in plan building if the participant agrees. Participant health care practitioners will review for safety, medications (if chosen), to provide back-up support if needed by the participant, and to follow progress. This application is responsive to the RFA by supporting an interdisciplinary team of researchers that will create a novel technology based "virtual clinician" that will allow variations in characteristics of the interventions intending to improve health risk behaviors and physiologic outcomes. The virtual clinician will integrate information from the individual behavioral and molecular levels that are intended to improve outcomes relevant to multiple NIH institutes (cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes). This project will create a Virtual Clinician (e.g., electronic, doctor, pharmacist, health counselor, nutritionist) that will allow patients to discuss healthy behaviors (e.g., physical activity, nutrition, tobacco) and help the patient build a plan for improving their health. Researchers will use the tool to determine the best information to provide in the discussion and the best way to present it to patients so that the information and plan is used to avoid getting cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.