The development and application of an engagement index on the participants use of an infant feeding app: the Growing healthy program

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event The development and application of an engagement index on the participants use of an infant feeding app: the Growing healthy program Sarah Taki1, 2*, Sharyn Lymer2, 3, Kok-Leong Ong2, 4, Karen Campbell2, 5, Georgina Russell1, 2, Rachel Laws2, 5 and Elizabeth Denney-Wilson1, 2 1 University of Technology Sydney, Health, Australia 2 Centre for Obesity Management & Prevention Research Excellence in Primary Health Care, Australia 3 University of Sydney, Australia 4 La Trobe University, Australia 5 Deakin University, Australia Background and Aims: Mobile health (mHealth) interventions have great potential to promote health (Denney-Wilson, 2015). To date, mHealth studies using apps have focused on intervention outcomes and have neglected to understand participants’ interactions with apps including how much, when and with which parts of apps participants engage. This is important in helping to determine the dose of the intervention they receive. We adapted an Engagement Index from the discipline of marketing to assess the levels at which mothers in a healthy infant feeding mHealth intervention (Growing healthy) interacted with the Growing healthy app. Methods/Results: The Engagement Index (EI) tool developed by Web analytics Demystified (Peterson & Carrabis, 2008) was adapted and used to measure how participants engaged with the Growing healthy app. The EI tool comprises five sub-indices designed to capture a range of participant behaviours: Click-Depth Index (Ci) describes the number of pages accessed each time participants visit the app (Ci= Sessions having at least ‘n’ page views / All Sessions); Recency Index (Ri) measures the days elapsed since the participant last accessed the app (Ri= 1/Number of days elapsed since the most recent session); Loyalty Index (Li) measures the frequency of app access over the program (Li= 1 - (1 / Number of visitor sessions during the timeframe); Interaction Index (Ii) measures the number of push notifications opened from those sent (Ii= Sessions where visitor completes an action / All Sessions); and Feedback Index (Fi) is a subjective indicator of the participant’s satisfaction with the app (Fi= number of positive responses/number of survey questions completed). Participants’ subjective satisfaction with the app was assessed from a quantitative survey (questions included: ease of navigation, readability, quality and usefulness of the content on the app) this score comprised the Fi. The total participant EI score was then calculated as the average across the five sub-indices, thus providing a scale ranging from disengaged through to highly engaged. Modelling will be done to establish the strength of the relationship between the EI and intervention outcomes, whilst controlling for co-variates such as parental age. Secondary analysis will be undertaken to consider the strength of associations between each sub-index and study outcomes. Conclusion MHealth interventions delivered by apps provide the opportunity to investigate participants’ engagement with the intervention and its constituent parts. The use of an Engagement Index may help researchers to understand how participants engage with such an intervention, the trends in engagement over the course of the program, and whether the levels of engagement affect intervention outcomes. Acknowledgements The research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, which is supported by a grant from the Australian government Department of Health and Ageing. The information and opinions contained in it do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute or the Australian government Department of Health and Ageing. References Denney-Wilson, E. L., Rachel;, Russell, Catherine; Ong, Kok-leong; Taki, Sarah Elliott, Rosalind; Azadi, Leva; Lymer, Sharyn; Taylor, Rachael; Lynch, John; Crawford, David; Ball, Kylie; Askew, Deborah; Litterbach, Eloise; Campbell, Karen. (2015). Preventing obesity in infants: the Growing healthy feasibility trial protocol. BMJ Open. Peterson, E. T., & Carrabis, J. (2008). Measuring the immeasurable: Visitor engagement. Web Analytics Demystified, 14, 16. Keywords: Engagement Index, mHealth, Infant feeding, Obesity, infants, Parents, Mothers Conference: 2nd Behaviour Change Conference: Digital Health and Wellbeing, London, United Kingdom, 24 Feb - 25 Feb, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Academic Citation: Taki S, Lymer S, Ong K, Campbell K, Russell G, Laws R and Denney-Wilson E (2016). The development and application of an engagement index on the participants use of an infant feeding app: the Growing healthy program. Front. Public Health. Conference Abstract: 2nd Behaviour Change Conference: Digital Health and Wellbeing. doi: 10.3389/conf.FPUBH.2016.01.00116 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 26 Nov 2015; Published Online: 09 Jan 2016. * Correspondence: Ms. Sarah Taki, University of Technology Sydney, Health, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia, sarah_taki@hotmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Sarah Taki Sharyn Lymer Kok-Leong Ong Karen Campbell Georgina Russell Rachel Laws Elizabeth Denney-Wilson Google Sarah Taki Sharyn Lymer Kok-Leong Ong Karen Campbell Georgina Russell Rachel Laws Elizabeth Denney-Wilson Google Scholar Sarah Taki Sharyn Lymer Kok-Leong Ong Karen Campbell Georgina Russell Rachel Laws Elizabeth Denney-Wilson PubMed Sarah Taki Sharyn Lymer Kok-Leong Ong Karen Campbell Georgina Russell Rachel Laws Elizabeth Denney-Wilson Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.