Creating a Virtual Clinician Research Tool

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议聘请一个跨学科的研究团队来创建“虚拟临床医生研究工具”，以帮助研究人员研究启动和维持健康行为改变。研究小组成员包括社会/健康心理学家、互动电脑应用发展专家、内科医生、临床心理学家、注册营养师、药剂师和资讯科技小组成员。该申请是对RFA （RM-07-004）“通过行为和社会科学的方法和技术创新促进跨学科研究”的回应。虚拟临床医生研究工具将通过用户友好的交互式计算机程序与具有一种或多种健康风险行为的研究参与者进行交互，该程序为他们提供基于国家指南的干预措施，以激励健康行为。虚拟临床医生将被设计为提供各种干预模块，并可以配置为不同的内容领域（例如，烟草，体育活动，营养，酒精，药物信息），从业者的类型和人口统计学（例如，医生，注册营养师，药剂师），基于理论的临床风格（例如，自决理论，动机访谈，社会学习理论），以及基于理论的中介的实时评估(感知自主性，自我效能)，影响量表，药物益处和副作用，戒断症状和自我报告的健康行为。“原型”虚拟临床医生将在提供有效的公共卫生服务烟草依赖治疗和自我决定理论（SDT）的基础上进行创建和试点，戒烟和降低ldl -胆固醇（国家胆固醇教育计划+ SDT）干预，以改善吸烟者的健康（Williams， McGregor等人，2006）。虚拟临床医生（VC）将用于获取相关健康史，解释人口统计学（年龄、性别）、行为和生理学（空腹血脂和血压）风险信息。虚拟临床医生将提供健康指导标准、治疗方案，并在参与者同意的情况下参与计划制定。参与者的医疗保健从业人员将审查安全性，药物（如果选择），提供后备支持，如果需要的参与者，并跟踪进展。该应用程序通过支持一个跨学科研究团队来响应RFA，该团队将创建一种基于“虚拟临床医生”的新技术，该技术将允许旨在改善健康风险行为和生理结果的干预特征的变化。虚拟临床医生将整合来自个人行为和分子水平的信息，旨在改善与多个NIH研究所（癌症、心血管疾病、糖尿病）相关的结果。该项目将创建一个虚拟临床医生（例如，电子、医生、药剂师、健康咨询师、营养师），允许患者讨论健康行为（例如，体育活动、营养、烟草），并帮助患者制定改善健康的计划。研究人员将使用该工具来确定在讨论中提供的最佳信息以及向患者展示这些信息的最佳方式，以便使用这些信息和计划来避免患癌症、心脏病和糖尿病。

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.