Update list of "Diagnosis" choices to include ND etc.

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Cornflake
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15 Oct 2022, 3:10 pm

A multiple-choice drop-down would be so long as to be unusable - and it still wouldn't satisfy everyone's needs: there would always be something missing.

Double Retired wrote:
If diagnosis becomes just a blank field, there are probably folk who would need more than one line.
The purpose of this field would be to voluntarily provide a brief indication of a member's diagnostic/non-diagnostic/other related status - not a lengthy description including comorbids and other subtleties etc. It's not a medical record. :wink:
One line is sufficient.

Quote:
It occurs to me that replacing the current mechanism for self-reporting your diagnosis would likely invalidate all of the diagnosis info already entered.
If such a thing was ever implemented it should of course default to whatever is currently selected on the existing drop-down and having copied that into a free-form text field, it could then be edited or removed as required.


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Double Retired
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15 Oct 2022, 4:30 pm

Cornflake wrote:
A multiple-choice drop-down would be so long as to be unusable - and it still wouldn't satisfy everyone's needs: there would always be something missing.
I guess I was thinking in terms of the different choices being listed on a menu with a checkbox next to each, rather than a drop-down. Something like that could accommodate people such as IsabellaLinton, and even my bride—who is neurodiverse ADHD and has a family member with Autism me.

But, I'll admit I've been thinking in terms of the user interface, not the underlying database. it dawns on me that could be "interesting" with respect to how the data is stored...it's probably stored in an individual database field? I could see how that could be a problem. An individual checkbox for each choice would imply a separate database field for each choice. (As small database field, checked or not, but nonetheless a separate database field for each possible choice.)

Cornflake wrote:
Double Retired wrote:
If diagnosis becomes just a blank field, there are probably folk who would need more than one line.
The purpose of this field would be to voluntarily provide a brief indication of a member's diagnostic/non-diagnostic/other related status - not a lengthy description including comorbids and other subtleties etc. It's not a medical record. :wink:
One line is sufficient.
The former DBA in me shudders at how that lends itself to lack of uniformity in the data.

Cornflake wrote:
Quote:
It occurs to me that replacing the current mechanism for self-reporting your diagnosis would likely invalidate all of the diagnosis info already entered.
If such a thing was ever implemented it should of course default to whatever is currently selected on the existing drop-down and having copied that into a free-form text field, it could then be edited or removed as required.
Is it stored as the text we see in the pull-down, or is that coded to something more compact for the database?


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IsabellaLinton
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15 Oct 2022, 4:44 pm

Honestly, I think the only change is that "Other Autism Spectrum Disorder" should be changed to whatever Alex / CF decides to call Autism.

Aspergers - Diagnosed / Suspected
Autism - Diagnosed / Suspected
Other ND Condition(s): ________________
Family Member of someone ND

Some people still identify as "Aspergers" and fit that criterion better so I would leave it. ^
(Apparently AS doesn't include sensory issues.)

That's likely good enough imo.



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15 Oct 2022, 4:55 pm

i think aspergers should still keep in the option list

but i think autism diagnosed should be another option

and self diagnosed or undiagnosed should be an option without having to mention the a words

and other neurological disorder should also be an option if your not autistic but not nt
if you are autistic and have other neurological disorders too then select whichever fits you

you can always explain your diagnosis identity in more detail in your signature if its important to you how you want others to know you as

i do think that trying to satisfy everybodys identities doesnt make things easier its like you got to include all or none


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IsabellaLinton
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15 Oct 2022, 5:02 pm

That's what I think too. ^
In my previous example, I think people should be able to pick more than one response.

It seems like no matter what we decide, it's hard for CF to change.

Another option that might be easier:
I've noticed we all get to list our stuff in our profiles but no one can see them.

Image

Would it be easier to open access to other people's profile?


Edit: I know we can access these things (below), but they don't show everything from our profile.

Image



Rotter
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15 Oct 2022, 10:07 pm

Cornflake wrote:
The simplest solution might just be a simple "describe it yourself" one-line text entry.
...
Personally, I'd prefer just the one-line blank field for a description - at least it would provide an opportunity to be precise..

This sounds like a good simple solution. As people already mentioned, the only disadvantage is if someone wants to use the data in future to make statistics, but it sounds like there are no plans to do that ? Therefore presumably this disadvantage won't make any difference.

Inconsistencies could be reduced by displaying a simple bullet-point list of examples. People could copy & paste one of the examples instead of writing their own. Probably only a small number of people would write their own custom text instead of simply copying & pasting one of the examples.

Alternatively, keep the current drop-down menu, add and rename a few items in it, and add an "Other" item but without doing any bespoke programming. The one-line textbox could simply remain visible and enabled at all times, regardless of whether "Other" is chosen in the drop-down menu. Although this solution isn't perfect programming, it doesn't matter and won't bother anyone in the case of WrongPlanet's needs, as far as I know, unless someone says otherwise.



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15 Oct 2022, 10:47 pm

Double Retired wrote:
I'll admit I've been thinking in terms of the user interface, not the underlying database. it dawns on me that could be "interesting" with respect to how the data is stored...it's probably stored in an individual database field? I could see how that could be a problem. An individual checkbox for each choice would imply a separate database field for each choice. (As small database field, checked or not, but nonetheless a separate database field for each possible choice.)

Creating multiple-choice in the fully proper manner would require 2 new SQL tables. Firstly a new table containing all possible diagnosis choices. The columns in this table would be:
(1) Choice ID (Primary Key).
(2) Name.

The second new table would record which checkboxes each user ticked. The only columns would be:
(1) User ID (FK from users table).
(2) Choice ID (FK from aforementioned choices table).

In this second new table, the Primary Key would consist of the combination of both of those 2 columns (User ID and Choice ID), not only one or the other, and not 3 columns (3 columns would be wrong).

That's the fully proper design, but it's unnecessary and unjustifiable for the needs of WrongPlanet. There's no reason to do all that work to store the data "properly" if the properly-stored data will never be used anyway.

Unless someone important has big plans for statistical analysis (plans that I don't know about), then I agree with Cornflake:
Cornflake wrote:
Personally, I'd prefer just the one-line blank field for a description - at least it would provide an opportunity to be precise..



Cornflake
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16 Oct 2022, 7:47 am

Double Retired wrote:
I guess I was thinking in terms of the different choices being listed on a menu with a checkbox next to each, rather than a drop-down.
Sketch it out on paper to see how unwieldy it would be - even if only half of those I listed were used, and there would still be some missing. :lol:

Quote:
An individual checkbox for each choice would imply a separate database field for each choice. (As small database field, checked or not, but nonetheless a separate database field for each possible choice.)
Not necessarily - for a drop-down choice it would be simpler to implement the choices as an array of text and store the index number for the chosen item. This precludes multiple choice on a single array of diagnostic descriptions, but I consider that as over-the-top; as I said, diagnosis data is not intended as a medical record.

Double Retired wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
Double Retired wrote:
If diagnosis becomes just a blank field, there are probably folk who would need more than one line.
The purpose of this field would be to voluntarily provide a brief indication of a member's diagnostic/non-diagnostic/other related status - not a lengthy description including comorbids and other subtleties etc. It's not a medical record. :wink:
One line is sufficient.
The former DBA in me shudders at how that lends itself to lack of uniformity in the data.
Not really - existing profile fields are already stored as free text records.
It could be a single line of text (say, 80 characters) and stored as just that, a fixed-length text record, initialised either as 80 spaces or the text of an existing diagnosis drop-down - which I would expect to be stored as an index to an array of diagnosis options. There's no need to save the diagnosis string when it can be represented by one byte, and should there ever be some sort of transfer from the drop-down to our imaginary database record the actual diagnostic text could simply be obtained via its index.


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Cornflake
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16 Oct 2022, 7:47 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
It seems like no matter what we decide, it's hard for CF to change.
Changes would be limited to what can be implemented without bespoke programming which would change the phpBB codebase - so that's likely a single drop-down as now (unworkable due to its extreme length) or replace it with a plain text field containing whatever description a member thinks best.

Quote:
Another option that might be easier:
I've noticed we all get to list our stuff in our profiles but no one can see them.

Image

Would it be easier to open access to other people's profile?
Possibly...

It depends on how hard-wired into the code that might be and how access to it is controlled by the basic member permissions. There may simply not be enough granularity to promote a private field in a profile to being (subject to user selection) public, requiring more changes to the phpBB codebase.


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Cornflake
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16 Oct 2022, 7:47 am

Rotter wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
The simplest solution might just be a simple "describe it yourself" one-line text entry.
...
Personally, I'd prefer just the one-line blank field for a description - at least it would provide an opportunity to be precise..

This sounds like a good simple solution. As people already mentioned, the only disadvantage is if someone wants to use the data in future to make statistics, but it sounds like there are no plans to do that ? Therefore presumably this disadvantage won't make any difference.
I see it as being no more of a disadvantage than the profile "Location" field (and others), all containing free text.

Quote:
Inconsistencies could be reduced by displaying a simple bullet-point list of examples. People could copy & paste one of the examples instead of writing their own. Probably only a small number of people would write their own custom text instead of simply copying & pasting one of the examples.
This seems to incorporate the worst aspect of an expanded list of diagnoses (the unwieldy length) and, instead of simply selecting one, a member would now have to copy/paste it instead?

Quote:
Alternatively, keep the current drop-down menu, add and rename a few items in it, and add an "Other" item but without doing any bespoke programming. The one-line textbox could simply remain visible and enabled at all times, regardless of whether "Other" is chosen in the drop-down menu. Although this solution isn't perfect programming, it doesn't matter and won't bother anyone in the case of WrongPlanet's needs, as far as I know, unless someone says otherwise.
But this would simply provide a longer, and still "inadequately stocked" list of diagnoses and an "Other" field: it kinda halfway addresses each with neither being very satisfactory.


I feel I should point out that while this all makes for a very interesting discussion, the bleak reality is that none of it really stands much chance of being implemented - on the one hand because many assumptions about phpBB's databases are made, that it's easy to add and index fields ad-hoc, that the existing facilities provided by phpBB are going to be adequate enough to permit these improved displays of data, that no bespoke programming is required, ad nauseam - and on the other hand, such changes are always Alex's decision.
Going by an extensive past history, the clear preference appears to be for running phpBB in a pretty much "out the box" setup - and I can see the value in doing this, but it does unfortunately mean that change is very difficult to make.


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16 Oct 2022, 10:24 am

If change is not going to happen then this discussion is a pointless exercise.

If change might happen then I believe it should:
- Focus on the core population of WP.
- Encompass DSM4 and DSM5 Autism diagnoses.
- Stay compatible with the existing data.
-- I would hate to see the existing data abandoned or deleted.
-- I assume converting the existing data is unlikely to happen.
- Maintain enough structure that it is data and not just bits.

I admit that last one is a personal bias. But when I did this chart I did use the existing diagnosis field, and my guess is a significant portion of the individuals with no diagnosis displayed might not have had a suitable choice to select.

I think the pull-down list I proposed would seem to be a relatively small change. It has a text edit for three items to reflect DSM5 and it adds one choice effectively so Neurodiverse but Not Autistic folk have something to check (alternatively "Neurotypical" could be revised to "Not on the Autism Spectrum").

But, if change is not going to happen then this discussion is a pointless exercise.


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Cornflake
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16 Oct 2022, 12:02 pm

Ah, my apologies - I thought it was pretty well known that "this site" and "development" generally only appear together in a sentence complaining about the lack of it.

The site has always been in a state of "as-is".
AFAIA there never has been any active or ongoing development apart from when the site was started and the implementation of the current version in 2014 (which was mostly a copy/paste activity to retain the data, familiar features and the look-n-feel).
Yes, that was a huge missed opportunity.

The discussion is still interesting though and again, I thought we were already into "fantasy football" territory what with all the assumptions being made about the phpBB codebase and databases - but I quite understand if you no longer wish to remain part of it.


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16 Oct 2022, 3:16 pm

Thanks for the clarification. I think I'll wander on.


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