Start Date
12-17-2013
Description
A new generation of patient-driven healthcare information systems (HIS) is emerging to advance traditional healthcare services and empower patient self-responsibility. Pro-fessional approaches to develop or improve HIS exist alongside evolving individual and community-shared approaches where patients take responsibility for their health data and health. Health Social Networks and the Quantified Self community are examples for such patient-driven initiatives. They inherently focus on empowering self-determination and responsibility. The success of future HIS relies – at least partially – on their engi-neers’ and developers’ capability to understand and use impulses from their respective target groups. The present study on self-tracking motivations aims to shed light on what drives people to track themselves. To this end, we conducted an exploratory survey with 150 self-trackers and developed a Five-Factor-Framework of Self-Tracking Motivations. The framework includes an inventory of five factors and a psychometrical scale of 19 items to measure individual drivers for self-tracking.
Recommended Citation
Gimpel, Henner; Nißen, Marcia; and Görlitz, Roland, "Quantifying the Quantified Self: A Study on the Motivations of Patients to Track Their Own Health" (2013). ICIS 2013 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2013/proceedings/HealthcareIS/3
Quantifying the Quantified Self: A Study on the Motivations of Patients to Track Their Own Health
A new generation of patient-driven healthcare information systems (HIS) is emerging to advance traditional healthcare services and empower patient self-responsibility. Pro-fessional approaches to develop or improve HIS exist alongside evolving individual and community-shared approaches where patients take responsibility for their health data and health. Health Social Networks and the Quantified Self community are examples for such patient-driven initiatives. They inherently focus on empowering self-determination and responsibility. The success of future HIS relies – at least partially – on their engi-neers’ and developers’ capability to understand and use impulses from their respective target groups. The present study on self-tracking motivations aims to shed light on what drives people to track themselves. To this end, we conducted an exploratory survey with 150 self-trackers and developed a Five-Factor-Framework of Self-Tracking Motivations. The framework includes an inventory of five factors and a psychometrical scale of 19 items to measure individual drivers for self-tracking.