Persuasive Intervention Research Articles

Insights from the evaluation of a persuasive intervention for absent-minded smartphone use

ABSTRACT Problematic smartphone use (PSU) is a growing concern that hurts users' daily lives and activities. Previous studies have emphasised the importance of developing mindfulness and self-efficacy concerning smartphone use rather than solely focussing on reducing usage. However, there has been little research developing and evaluating digital interventions specifically targeting absent-minded smartphone use. There is also little knowledge on how best mindfulness practice using digital technologies can be integrated with persuasive designs which have been widely studied and implemented for behaviour change. In this paper, we developed a live wallpaper application for Android lock and home screens as a mindfulness-based intervention for absent-minded smartphone use. The application was evaluated over two weeks with 121 participants. This was followed by a semi-structured interview with 15 participants. The results of our analysis show that the intervention reduced absent-minded smartphone use overall. While participants found the various features (especially the customisation features) of the intervention to be persuasive, we found no correlation between perceived persuasiveness and behaviour change. This work provides valuable insights for advancing human-computer interaction (HCI) research on PSU. Additionally, the results raise important questions for future research, such as the relationship between perceived persuasiveness and behaviour change. Finally, we contribute to the discussion on the applications of mindfulness in persuasive technology, challenges and future research areas.

Testing a persuasive health communication intervention (PHCI) for emergency department patients who declined rapid HIV/HCV screening: a randomised controlled trial study protocol

IntroductionPrevious studies have shown that substantial percentages of emergency department (ED) patients in the USA recommended for HIV or hepatitis C (HCV) decline testing. Evidence-based and cost-effective interventions to improve...

AR Dancee: An Augmented Reality-Based Mobile Persuasive Intervention for Promoting Physical Activity Through Dancing

The importance of physical activity (PA) for overall health and well-being cannot be overstated, especially in today’s fast-paced and sedentary society. Engaging in enjoyable activities like dancing can significantly enhance PA levels and positively affect one’s mood. Advances in technology have the potential to increase individuals’ engagement in more physical activities. This work explores the effectiveness of augmented reality-driven persuasive intervention in enhancing users’ physical activity and mood. To achieve our goal, we developed AR Dancee, a mobile-driven intervention combining Augmented Reality, Machine Learning, and persuasive technology to encourage adults to increase their PA through dancing, ultimately improving their mood. A 15-day user study with 104 participants showed that the intervention effectively increased PA levels, with equal effectiveness across genders and a stronger impact on younger adults. The results also show that the intervention improved participants’ mood while reducing anxiety levels, demonstrating its potential for stress management. Overall, the contribution of this work to the HCI fields is threefold: (1) the design and development of an AR-driven persuasive mobile app, (2) providing design recommendations, and (3) pinpointing limitations and providing suggestions for future work.

A Drop in the Ocean? Fostering Water-Saving Behavior and Spillover Through Information Provision and Feedback

Pro-environmental change is essential to address climate change. Impact from behavior change interventions increases if non-target behaviors also change. Here, we explore such behavioral spillover effects following a water conservation behavioral intervention and examine whether they are mediated by changes in relevant identities and beliefs. We used a persuasive intervention to encourage 150 participants to reduce daily shower-times over 14 days to conserve water. The intervention comprised information-provision, eliciting a shower time reduction commitment, and (for half the sample) progress feedback. We found that participants reduced shower time (by 38%) and intended to engage more in water-saving and pro-environmental activities, but we found no evidence of behavioral spillover (i.e., non-targeted intention change was not mediated by change in the target behavior). There was no additional effect on behavior change of receiving feedback. We discuss the implications of these findings for spillover in theory and practice.

Identifying And Improving Young Drivers’ Perceptions Towards Vulnerable Road Users

Vulnerable road users (VRUs) like bicyclists, pedestrians, and road users of other modalities, are at a higher risk of collision with young drivers when a complex traffic situation presents itself. Past research has established the importance of young drivers’ perceptions about VRUs around safe interactions. This research aimed to design and evaluate a novel persuasive intervention that can improve perceptions of young drivers towards VRUs. First, the study identified recently licensed (12 to 18 months) perceptions towards VRUs through structured interviews. Based on these findings, an interactive intervention was designed and evaluated. Results showed improvement over time in self-reported violations among groups who received the intervention or the control. Additionally, participants who received a citation showed lower violations and lapses. The findings have implications for designing future interventions for interactions with VRUs.

Mathematical Model of Armed Criminal Group with Pre-emitive and Repressive Intervention

Armed Criminal group is one of the problems faced by many countries in the world. Awful behaviour of armed criminal group members can affect a large amount of people. In this paper, we construct a deterministic mathematical model that takes into account persuasive and repressive intervention. We consider crime as a social epidemic. We determine the armed criminal group free equilibrium point and the armed criminal group persistence equilibrium point together with their existence condition. The next generation matrix is used to obtain the basic reproduction number. The local stability conditions of equilibrium points are proved using linearization. We show that the armed criminal group free equilibrium point is globally asymptotically stable under certain condition. Numerical simulations are performed to support our deductive study.

Evaluating a Persuasive Intervention for Engagement in a Large University Class

Persuasive Technologies (PT) are computational methods, strategies, and design techniques, grounded in social psychology to change user attitudes/behaviours. PTs have been applied in diverse areas, such as eCommerce, health, workplace, vehicles, urban and ambient environments. A kind of PT that has become popular in eLearning is known under the name “Gamification” – introducing game mechanics (such as points, levels, badges, leaderboards) into non-game environments. We implemented three persuasive strategies in an online learning environment supporting a University class to encourage more active engagement of students in their online learning activities. The paper presents a controlled study that shows a positive effect of the persuasive intervention on student engagement, measured by the increase in their online activities. The study results also show that personalizing the persuasive strategies to the receptiveness of individual students amplifies their effect on engagement.

Development and Refinement of a Persuasive Health Communication Intervention to Persuade Adult Emergency Department Patients to be Screened for HIV and Hepatitis C

Screening for HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) in emergency departments (EDs) allows patients to benefit from life-saving treatment; however, some patients at risk for these infections decline to be tested. Interventions that overcome patient reluctance to be screened are needed so that infected patients can be linked with care. In this project, we developed a very brief, theory-based, persuasive health communication intervention (PHCI) drawn from our previous research that can be integrated into usual clinical practice. The intervention was revised with the assistance of stakeholders who would likely either deliver the intervention (ED medical staff or HIV/HCV counselors) and those who would receive it (adult ED patients). The final version of the intervention was rated as both persuasive and respectful of ED patients who initially declined HIV/HCV testing.

Engaging People with Energy Efficiency: A Randomised Controlled Trial Testing the Effects of Thermal Imaging Visuals in a Letter Communication

The study tested the effect of adding visualisations to a communication to engage householders with an energy efficiency programme. External wall insulation is an appropriate way of insulating homes, yet take-up is low. Householders may be unaware of the heat loss from uninsulated walls. In earlier research, seeing thermal images prompted the uptake of simple energy efficiency actions amongst householders. Thermal images were added to a standard letter to visualise heat transfer from a home before and after external wall insulation had been installed. A randomised controlled trial tested three types of letter (standard, standard plus thermal image showing problem, standard plus thermal images showing problem and solution) in 5483 UK households. The target outcome was the rate of telephone enquiries after exposure to the letters. Enquiry rates were low (1.6%) and did not differ between letter type. We discuss the null effect in relation to the target action (external wall insulation), the manner of presentation of the visuals (mass communication, letter through the door) and the ingredients of a persuasive intervention. Findings suggest that taking a key ingredient from an intervention and applying it in a different context may result in the loss of its impact.

Persuasive antimicrobial stewardship intervention in the context of a KPC outbreak: a controlled interrupted time series analysis

IntroductionAntimicrobial resistance is a major public health threat. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is one of the key strategies to overcome resistance, but robust evidence on the effect of specific interventions is lacking. We report an interrupted time series (ITS) analysis of a persuasive AMS intervention implemented during a KPC producing Klebsiella pneumoniae outbreak.MethodsA controlled ITS for carbapenem consumption, total antibiotic consumption and antibiotic-free days, between January 2012 and May 2018 was performed, using segmented regression analysis. The AMS intervention was implemented in the Vascular Surgery ward starting on April 2016 in the context of a KPC outbreak. The General Surgery ward was taken as a control group. Data were aggregated by month for both wards, including 51 pre-intervention and 26 intervention points.ResultsThe AMS intervention produced a level change in carbapenem consumption of − 11.14 DDDs/100 patient-days accompanied by a decreasing trend of total antibiotic consumption and stable rate of antibiotic-free days in Vascular Surgery ward. These differences were not apparent in the control group. No differences in mortality or readmission rates between pre-intervention and intervention periods were noticed in any of the groups.ConclusionPersuasive AMS interventions on top of previously implemented restrictive interventions can reduce carbapenem consumption without increasing total antibiotic consumption. Starting persuasive AMS interventions in an outbreak setting does not compromise the sustainability of the intervention.

Application of CT Imaging in the Analysis of Thigh Muscle Morphology of Athletes

The objective of the paper is to investigate and explore the effects of progressive muscle relaxation training (PMR) on image qualities of computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography and the relief of anxiety and pain of patients, as well as the improvement of sleep qualities of patients. The SPSS 16.0 statistics software was applied to respectively obtain the mean number, the standard deviation, and P value, etc. and analyze the variances of each group; the analysis was statistically significant at P < 0 05. The results of the study showed that CT could clearly indicate the anatomy of the thigh muscles and adjacent organs, and could better distinguish the bone density; however, its partitioning accuracy of the erector spinae was slightly worse. Therefore, it was inferred that morphological parameters such as CT values would provide persuasive data for clinical diagnosis, intervention therapy, and rehabilitation exercises, etc.

Jan Walmsley and Simon Jarrett (eds), Intellectual Disability in the Twentieth Century: Transnational Perspectives on People, Policy, and Practice

This excellent book provides a broad yet richly textured, nuanced study of intellectual disability in 12 states/areas over the long twentieth century. While this book is not comprehensive (no book can be), it offers a brilliant starting point for students and experts interested in the modern history of intellectual disability. Each of the book’s 12 chapters places people with intellectual disabilities at the centre of their analysis of policy and practice. Interview transcripts and direct quotations from people with disabilities punctuate this timely and persuasive intervention into disability history. Through this volume, readers will obtain a solid foundation in the history of people with intellectual disabilities in places as distant as Ghana, Taiwan and the USA, and as closely situated as Hungry, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic and Austria. Each of the book’s chapters, which stand on their own as solid contributions to the field, can be read in any order, or combined along thematic lines. In a bold move, the editors decided not to impose their own (some might say artificial and arbitrary) boundaries on the scholarship, and instead decided to order the chapters alphabetically by country. This means that the UK and the USA, which usually dominate discussions of intellectual disability, appear at the end of the book, rather than at the beginning. This simple, yet powerful, act works to de-centre arguably the two most influential forces in the history of twentieth-century intellectual disability. The result is the foregrounding of the influences of local and regional histories and cultures, and international apparatus such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/O Americas ed. by Jimmy A. Noriega and Analola Santana

Reviewed by: Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/O Americas ed. by Jimmy A. Noriega and Analola Santana Eric Mayer-García THEATRE AND CARTOGRAPHIES OF POWER: REPOSITIONING THE LATINA/O AMERICAS. Edited by Jimmy A. Noriega and Analola Santana. Theater in the Americas series. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018; pp. 320. Editors Jimmy A. Noriega and Analola Santana's recent volume of critical essays forges a truly hemispheric discourse on theatre historiography. This transformative achievement is made possible through colossal efforts in networking and translation to bring a number of key interventions to bear on our field from over thirty national, transnational, and regional perspectives. The most persuasive intervention ties them all together: the editors frame the dominance of Western and Eurocentric lenses in our field in terms of "cartographies of power," a form of ideological subjugation through mapping and its concomitant imaginaries. They challenge us to acknowledge the ways cartographies of power—beginning with early colonial accounts written by Columbus or Bernal Díaz and continuing through the United States' economic, political, and military aggression—have shaped histories and conceptions of performance throughout the Americas. All the while, binaries such as Old/New, Anglo/Latin, and North/South continue to dictate the way theatre is categorized, written, taught, and disseminated from the North. Noriega and Santana reference Uruguayan avant-garde artist Joaquín Torres-García's América Invertida (1943), an ink rendering of South America that places the South Pole at the top of the map, as an inspiration for the volume and for reorienting the reader's cartographic bearings. Retooling theory from Doreen Massey, Lawrence Grossberg, and others, the concept of cartographies of power forms the basis for the questions posed to each contributor, who probe for whom and by whom theatre histories of the hemispheric Americas have been mapped, and how scholars and artists can (re)position the Americas to allow for agency, diversity, and visibility in theatrical imaginaries and artistic works. Contributors confront and subvert cartographies of power through a variety of genres such as historiography, performance theory, testimony, memoir, and aesthetic philosophy. The collection's five sections speak to one another and give coherence to its many contributions, whose varying lengths, genres, and styles violate the norms of theatre scholarship and make the volume anything but monotonous. Noriega and Santana position their work as a much-needed continuation of the conversation started by Diana Taylor and Juan Villegas's Negotiating Performance: Gender, Sexuality, and Theatricality in Latin/o America (1994). There is a great balance among the contributors, who include established rainmakers of Latinx and Latin American performance criticism, emerging leaders in the field, and some of the most important artists of the last thirty years. That more than a few of the contributors have published monographs on related topics in the last five years speaks to their stake in the volume's intervention and the level of their expertise. To take this book as establishing a new Latinx or Latin American canon would be to misread the project's aims. The volume features a guardian at the door, literally on the cover, to thwart such a colonizing reading. The book's first contributor, Mexican performance artist Violeta Luna, offers a performance titled Transient Corporalities, commissioned for the volume and presented through a series of photographs by Zen Cohen. In the first photograph, "Aztekali," Luna performs a fierce Aztec-Hindu goddess as a bricolage of coded references, misogynist rhetoric, mass-produced textiles, and incongruent fragments of displaced colonial gazes. The resulting opacity creates mayhem for dominant cartographic frames and critically reworks histories of gender, race, nation, and globalization. Fellow contributor Jorge Dubatti's definition of theatricality as engendered by the capacity "to organize the gaze of the other, to produce a political optics or a politics of the gaze" (35) resonates with Luna's theory in practice, as she stares back at a gaze that is preoccupied with the discovery of a new Latin American Otherness—a gaze she cites [End Page 540] and constructs through co-opted colonialist imagery. Her refusal to deliver such a fiction is legible in the irony of each photo. Luna's subversive play...

Gender, Age and Subjective Well-Being: Towards Personalized Persuasive Health Interventions

(1) Background: Subjective well-being (SWB) is an individual’s judgment about their overall well-being. Research has shown that high subjective well-being contributes to overall health. SWB consists of both Affective and Cognitive dimensions. Existing studies on SWB are limited in two major ways: first, they focused mainly on the Affective dimension. Second, most existing studies are focused on individuals from the Western and Asian nations; (2) Methods: To resolve these weaknesses and contribute to research on personalizing persuasive health interventions to promote SWB, we conducted a large-scale study of 732 participants from Nigeria to investigate what factors affect their SWB using both the Affective and Cognitive dimensions and how distinct SWB components relates to different gender and age group. We employed the Structural Equation Model (SEM) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to develop models showing how gender and age relate to the distinct components of SWB; (3) Results: Our study reveals significant differences between gender and age groups. Males are more associated with social well-being and satisfaction with life components while females are more associated with emotional well-being. As regards age, younger adults (under 24) are more associated with social well-being and happiness while older adults (over 65) are more associated with psychological well-being, emotional well-being, and satisfaction with life. (4) Conclusions: The results could inform designers of the appropriate SWB components to target when personalizing persuasive health interventions to promote overall well-being for people belonging to various gender and age groups. We offer design guidelines for tailoring persuasive intervention to increase SWB based on an individual’s age and gender group. Finally, we map SWB components to possible persuasive technology design strategies that can be employed to implement them in persuasive interventions design.

Development of a self-guided web-based exercise intervention (SPIN) to treat shoulder pain in people living with spinal cord injury: protocol of a mixed methods study

IntroductionChronic shoulder pain is common after spinal cord injury (SCI) and limits community mobility. This leads to loss of independence and reduced quality of life. Evidence suggests that exercises can...

De-escalation and discontinuation strategies in high-risk neutropenic patients: an interrupted time series analyses of antimicrobial consumption and impact on outcome.

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is the main reason for antibiotic prescription in hematology wards where, on the other hand, antibiotic stewardship (AS) is poorly explored. The objectives of the present study were to evaluate (1) the impact of an AS intervention on antibiotic consumption and (2) the applicability and acceptance rate of the intervention and its clinical impact. A persuasive AS intervention based on European Conference on Infection in Leukaemia (ECIL) guidelines for FN was implemented in a high-risk hematology ward in a tertiary referral public university hospital. This included the creation and diffusion of flow charts on de-escalation and discontinuation of antibiotics for FN, and the introduction in the team of a doctor dedicated to the implementation of flow charts and to antibiotic prescription revision. All consecutive patients receiving antibiotics during hospitalization were included. A segmented linear regression model was performed for the evaluation of antibiotic consumption, taking into account 1-year pre-intervention period and 6-month intervention period. Overall, 137 consecutive antibiotic prescriptions were re-evaluated, 100 prescriptions were for FN. A significant reduction of the level of carbapenem consumption was observed during the intervention period (level change (estimate coefficient ± standard error) = - 135.28 ± 59.49; p = 0.04). Applicability and acceptability of flow charts were high. No differences in terms of intensive care unit transfers, bacteremia incidence, and mortality were found. A persuasive AS intervention in hematology significantly reduced carbapenem consumption without affecting outcome and was well accepted. This should encourage further applications of ECIL guidelines for FN.

Socially-driven persuasive health intervention design: Competition, social comparison, and cooperation.

Persuasive technologies are tools for motivating behaviour change using persuasive strategies. socially-driven persuasive technologies employ three common socially-oriented persuasive strategies in many health domains: competition, social comparison, and cooperation. Research has shown the possibilities for socially-driven persuasive interventions to backfire by demotivating behaviour, but we lack knowledge about how the interventions could motivate or demotivate behaviours. To close this gap, we studied 1898 participants, specifically Socially-oriented strategies and their comparative effectiveness in socially-driven persuasive health interventions that motivate healthy behaviour change. The results of a thematic analysis of 278 pages of qualitative data reveal important strengths and weaknesses of the individual socially-oriented strategies that could facilitate or hinder their effectiveness at motivating behaviour change. These include their tendency to simplify behaviours and make them fun, challenge people and make them accountable, give a sense of accomplishment and their tendency to jeopardize user's privacy and relationships, creates unnecessary tension, and reduce self-confidence and self-esteem, and provoke a health disorder and body shaming, respectively. We contribute to the health informatics community by developing 15 design guidelines for operationalizing the strategies in persuasive health intervention to amplify their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.

Antimicrobial Prescribing Patterns of Surgical Speciality in a Tertiary Care Hospital in India: Role of Persuasive Intervention for Changing Antibiotic Prescription Behaviour

Background: Inappropriate use of antibiotics globally has been linked to increase in antibiotic resistance. Objectives: This interventional study assessed the impact of antibiotic prescription feedback and focus group discussions (FGD) on hospital-based prescribers before and after the FGD. Study Design: The present study was performed at a tertiary care centre in New Delhi, wherein 45 units from surgical specialities were included for FGD. Thirty-five units were assessed for the antibiotic usage during 12 months pre-intervention and 3 and 6 months post-intervention period. The outcome measured was a change in antibiotic prescription rates reflected as daily defined doses per 100 bed days as defined by the World Health Organisation. Results: Reduction in the level of antibiotic consumption was observed in 15 of 35 units (42.85%) during the 3 months post-intervention period, which was significant (P < 0.05) in 3/35 (8.57%) surgical units. A significant reduction (P < 0.05) was observed for the units of endoscopic gynaecology, super-speciality and transplant surgery units B and C, and orthopaedic unit C during the 6 months period. Decreasing trend (P < 0.05) was observed in 2/35 (5.71%) units during the entire period. Overall reduction of antibiotic consumption (1.88%) was observed, with an increase in the use of low-end antibiotics and a decrease in the use of high-end antibiotics. Conclusion: The present study clearly demonstrates a weak impact of FGD in changing antibiotic prescribing behaviour. Further analysis of the sustainability of FGD and its long-term impact on antimicrobial resistance needs to be evaluated. The effect of continuous educational sessions and multifaceted interventions cannot be ignored.

Developing Persuasive Health Messages for a Behavior-Change-Support-System That Promotes Physical Activity

This paper describes the first of three experiments conducted to investigate the efficacy of a proposed persuasive mHealth messaging intervention that motivates individuals to become more physically active. In order to develop a set of persuasive health messages that can be used in the principal experiment, which examines a particular message-tailoring strategy, we conducted an online survey through Amazon Mechanical Turk. In this online study participants rated a series of health messages to indicate each message’s level of persuasiveness, as well as the message’s focus. This study was essential, as disagreements exist on how to frame persuasive health messages in the context of promoting physical activity. Among the proposed 57 messages, 14 messages rated as the most persuasive were selected for the principal experiment.

Users’ Perceptions on a Persuasive Information System-Based Intervention for Child Healthcare: A Trial Study

Objective: This study aimed to examine users’ perception on a persuasive information system-based intervention for child healthcare through a research model that was developed using five pre-defined constructs. Methods: The study was carried out at Blinded, Oman in June 2017. Using five pre-defined constructs, a research model was developed. The constructs were used as latent variables to examine their likely impact on users’ perceptions and intentions to use a persuasive intervention for child healthcare. A structured questionnaire was validated and distributed among 150 participants to access their perceptions. Factor loadings and calculated variances were used to ensure validity and reliability of the research model. In addition, Cronbach’s Alpha was employed to measure the internal consistency and reliability. Results: Factor loadings and calculated variances for each item (per construct) were greater than 0.700 and 0.500 respectively. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values were above 0.635. The discriminant validity of all the correlations was below the desirable HTMT value of 0.90. Analyses of path coefficients and outer loadings indicate that Perceived Usefulness (p<0.001), Content of Intervention (p<0.050), Perceived Credibility (p<0.050) and Perceived Usefulness (p<0.050) can have a significant influence on Intention to Use the Intervention. Conclusions: The findings support the studied research model and indicate that users perceive an intervention to be persuasive given that it credible and its content is meaningful. When users perceive an intervention as being credible and useful, it develops their intention to actually use it in real life.