Gamification and mHealth: a model to bolster cardiovascular disease self-management

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease management, especially after an acute event, requires consideration of cardiovascular risk factors, which are generally lifestyle habits. Current implementation of recommended care is suboptimal, due in part to the difficulty of implementing and maintaining health behaviour changes. mHealth apps offer new approaches to support behavioural changes, in particular with the use of gamification strategies. These strategies have the potential to help maintain engagement over time. Reviews of current health apps that use gamification strategies show low integration of theoretical behavioural models in app design, and low use of gamification for cardiovascular self-management apps in general. We propose the integration of gamification strategies in a validated behaviour-change model, based on a patient survey and focus group. This model can be used to design a future smartphone app to support self-management of cardiovascular disease.