IDEAS (Integrate, Design, Assess, and Share): A Framework and Toolkit of Strategies for the Development of More Effective Digital Interventions to Change Health Behavior.

Sarah Ann Mummah,Stephen Sutton,Abby C King,Christopher D Gardner,Thomas N Robinson

doi:10.2196/jmir.5927

Sarah Ann Mummah, Stephen Sutton + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.5927

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Abstract

Developing effective digital interventions to change health behavior has been a challenging goal for academics and industry players alike. Guiding intervention design using the best combination of approaches available is necessary if effective technologies are to be developed. Behavioral theory, design thinking, user-centered design, rigorous evaluation, and dissemination each have widely acknowledged merits in their application to digital health interventions. This paper introduces IDEAS, a step-by-step process for integrating these approaches to guide the development and evaluation of more effective digital interventions. IDEAS is comprised of 10 phases (empathize, specify, ground, ideate, prototype, gather, build, pilot, evaluate, and share), grouped into 4 overarching stages: Integrate, Design, Assess, and Share (IDEAS). Each of these phases is described and a summary of theory-based behavioral strategies that may inform intervention design is provided. The IDEAS framework strives to provide sufficient detail without being overly prescriptive so that it may be useful and readily applied by both investigators and industry partners in the development of their own mHealth, eHealth, and other digital health behavior change interventions.

Highlights

Digital technology has rapidly and dramatically shifted how humans interact with the world and presents an unprecedented opportunity to develop, test, and widely disseminate effective health behavior change interventions
Published evaluations contribute to the literature and evidence base, helping uncover the potential and challenges of using digital interventions to improve health outcomes [8,13]
To address the need for a framework that more fully integrates strengths from behavioral theory, design thinking, and evaluation and dissemination, we introduce IDEAS, a framework to better guide the development of digital health interventions to change behavior

Summary

Introduction

Digital technology has rapidly and dramatically shifted how humans interact with the world and presents an unprecedented opportunity to develop, test, and widely disseminate effective health behavior change interventions. Most digital health interventions are yet to incorporate theory-based strategies known to drive changes in health behaviors or undergo systematic testing to demonstrate their effectiveness [1,2,3]. Interventions are more often grounded in behavioral theory and tested for their efficacy [6] They face similar challenges around declining retention rates, and the rapid pace of new technology development makes it increasingly difficult for researchers to develop, pilot-test, and evaluate interventions before such technologies become outdated or obsolete [7,8]. Researcher-driven technologies often do not benefit from numerous rapid cycles of fine-tuning based on user feedback nor do they usually become widely disseminated among the broader public [9]

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