Uncertain Multiplicative Language Decision Method Based on Group Compromise Framework for Evaluation of Mobile Medical APPs in China

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Apr 21;17(8):2858. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17082858.

Abstract

The mobile medical application (M-medical APP) can optimize medical service process and reduce health management costs for users, which has become an important complementary form of traditional medical services. To assist users including patients choose the ideal M-medical APP, we proposed a novel multiple attribute group decision making algorithm based on group compromise framework, which does not need to determine the weight of decision-maker. The algorithm utilizes an uncertain multiplicative linguistic variable to measure the individual original preference to express the real evaluation information as much as possible. The attribute weight was calculated by maximizing the differences among alternatives. It determined the individual alternatives ranking according to the net flow of each alternative. By solving the 0-1 model with the objective of minimizing the differences between individual ranking, the ultimate group compromise ranking is obtained. Then we took 10 well-known M-medical APPs in Chinese as an example, we summarized service categories provided for users and constructed the assessment system consisting of 8 indexes considering the service quality users are concerned with. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method and the consistency of ranking results were verified, through comparing the group ranking results of 3 similar algorithms. The experiments show that group compromise ranking is sensitive to attribute weight.

Keywords: M-medical service; evaluation of APP; group compromise ranking; uncertain multiplicative linguistic variable.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • China
  • Humans
  • Language*
  • Mobile Applications*
  • Uncertainty