Personalized cardiovascular risk management linking SCORE and behaviour change to web-based education

The PULSE (Personalization Using Linkages of SCORE and behaviour change readiness to web-based Education) project objectives are to generate and evaluate a web-based personalized educational intervention for the management of cardiovascular risk. The program is based on a patient profile generated by combining: (a) an electronic patient data capture template (DCT); (b) the Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) algorithm; and (c) a Stage of Change determination model. The DCT inherently contains a set of evidence-based parameters for patient description and disease evaluation. The patient's stage of behaviour change determines messages consistent with the individual's change processes, decisional balance, and self-efficacy. The interventions are designed to address both medical and psychosocial aspects of risk management and, as such, we combine staged lifestyle modification materials and non-staged messages based on Canadian clinical guidelines to motivate personal risk management. The personalization decision logic is represented in Medical Logic Modules implemented in Java. An intelligent interactive system generates the personally relevant materials and delivers the education to the patient via the Web. An evaluation study will be conducted to determine whether web-based personalized educational strategies exert favourable influence on patient's interest, knowledge, and perceived compliance to the suggested lifestyle modifications.