title: Understanding and Promoting Effective Engagement With Digital Behavior Change Interventions.
abstract: This paper is one in a series developed through a process of expert consensus to provide an overview of questions of current importance in research into engagement with digital behavior change interventions, identifying guidance based on research to date and priority topics for future research. The first part of this paper critically reflects on current approaches to conceptualizing and measuring engagement. Next, issues relevant to promoting effective engagement are discussed, including how best to tailor to individual needs and combine digital and human support. A key conclusion with regard to conceptualizing engagement is that it is important to understand the relationship between engagement with the digital intervention and the desired behavior change. This paper argues that it may be more valuable to establish and promote "effective engagement," rather than simply more engagement, with "effective engagement" defined empirically as sufficient engagement with the intervention to achieve intended outcomes. Appraisal of the value and limitations of methods of assessing different aspects of engagement highlights the need to identify valid and efficient combinations of measures to develop and test multidimensional models of engagement. The final section of the paper reflects on how interventions can be designed to fit the user and their specific needs and context. Despite many unresolved questions posed by novel and rapidly changing technologies, there is widespread consensus that successful intervention design demands a user-centered and iterative approach to development, using mixed methods and in-depth qualitative research to progressively refine the intervention to meet user requirements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom. Electronic address: l.yardley@soton.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Lucy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yardley
authors.affiliation: Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: Bonnie J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Spring
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Heleen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Riper
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Leanne G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Morrison
authors.affiliation: Research Department of Clinical, Education and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Crane
authors.affiliation: Centre for Technology Enabled Health Research, Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Curtis
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, California.
authors.forename: Gina C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Merchant
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Naughton
authors.affiliation: Institute of Digital Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blandford
mesh_terms: D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D010358:Patient Participation; D012107:Research Design; D013685:Telecommunications