Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Chest pain is one of the most common complaints in emergency departments (EDs). Self-reported computerized history taking (CHT) programmes can be used for interpretation of the clinical significance of medical information coming directly from patients. The adoption of CHT in clinical practice depends on reactions and attitudes to the technology from patients and their belief that the technology will have benefits for their medical care. The study objective was to explore the user experience of the self-reported CHT programme Clinical Expert Operating System (CLEOS) in the setting of patients visiting an ED for acute chest pain. METHODS: This qualitative interview study is part of the ongoing CLEOS-Chest Pain Danderyd Study. A subset (n = 84) of the larger sample who had taken part in self-reported history taking during waiting times at the ED were contacted by telephone and n = 54 (64%) accepted participation. An interview guide with open-ended questions was used and the text was analysed using directed content analysis. RESULTS: The patients' experiences of the CLEOS programme were overall positive although some perceived it as extensive. The programme was well accepted and despite the busy environment, patients were highly motivated and deemed it helpful to make a diagnosis. Six categories of user experience emerged: The clinical context, The individual context, Time aspect, Acceptability of the programme, Usability of the programme and Perceptions of usefulness in a clinical setting. CONCLUSIONS: The programme was well accepted by most patients in the stressful environment at ED although some found it difficult to answer all the questions. Adjustments to the extent of an interview to better suit the context of the clinical use should be a future development of the programme. The findings suggest that CHT programmes can be integrated as a standard process for collecting self-reported medical history data in the ED setting.