While unprecedented amounts of multimodal health data become increasingly available and their secondary use in clinical and (bio)medical research holds great promise, people's agency over this data is in contention. In the context of biobank research, patient-centered initiatives such as 'dynamic consent' have been proposed as a way to provide people with ownership over their health data by allowing for granular expression of their consent preferences using a digital interface. Although such interfaces have been positively assessed within their original biobank context, more heterogeneous audiences will need to be considered if such a socio-technical tool is to be adopted widely and provide people ownership over their electronic medical records. One subset of people that will require adjusted functionalities and interaction modalities in this regard are those with a cognitive impairing condition like dementia, given the illness' consequences on decision making capacity. This study qualitatively explores the user & social requirements of a tool like dynamic consent if it is to be used in a meaningful way also by people with dementia and their (informal) carers. We report findings from interviews and an expert focus group with people with dementia, their caretakers, and experts to depict their views and requirements on a tool like dynamic consent.
The objective of this qualitative study is to create a better understanding of patients' mental model of health data engagement interfaces and tools (such as Dynamic Consent). The researchers will focus especially on those people who - plausibly - require adjusted communication particularities and interaction modalities due to a cognitive impairment stemming from a neurodegenerative disease. Taking into account the specific characteristics of patients with dementia, the goal of this study is to investigate how to communicate according to patients' personal skills and capabilities and identify both the proper support mechanisms for engagement 2.0 consent as well as feedback mechanisms (return of research results). Through a focus group & interview setup, this study will discern design requirements and propose design recommendations for the (future) development of health data engagement interfaces.