Designing and development of decision support system for the management of lifestyle diseases

The research work was conducted in Ludhiana city of Punjab, India (2019-22) to design and develop a decision support system for management of lifestyle diseases. In analysis of surveys conducted in last 5 years, it was found that Punjab is one of the leading states with high percentage of people suffering from various lifestyle diseases and its common risk factor obesity. Based on this analysis of secondary sources three prominent lifestyle diseases viz. Hypertension, Diabetes and Cardiovascular diseases were identified for development of Decision Support System (DSS). DSS was designed with the aim of managing three selected lifestyle diseases and their common risk factor obesity. Development process involved a three-tier development model. Each step involved in designing and development of DSS was validated by a group of experts. Content, design, and development phase had undergone process validation by experts from three different departments at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana i.e., Department of Food and Nutrition (FN), Department of Extension Education and Communication Management (EECM) and Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (EEIT) and by the chief medical officer at PAU hospital respectively to ensure that content, design, message clarity and coding for developing DSS was appropriate to manage selected lifestyle diseases. Appropriateness scores were provided by the experts on different parameters. Sign test was applied to statistically validate appropriateness scores. Results of process validation revealed that the overall mean score for appropriateness of content of DSS by experts from FN and Chief Medical Officer, PAU was 2.36 (mean score range 1-3). The overall mean score for appropriateness of design and clarity of message as provided by experts from EECM was 2.62 (mean score range 1-3). And the overall mean score for coding and development process of DSS by experts from the department of EEIT was 2.68 (mean score range 1-3). Overall scores of process validation by experts from different departments proved that content, design, message clarity and coding for designing and development of DSS was appropriate. After, process validation by the experts a working prototype of DSS for management of lifestyle disease was developed.