Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Chat App for the Open Source Behavioral Health Intervention Platform MobileCoach

Kowatsch, Tobias; Volland, Dirk; Shih, Iris; Rüegger, Dominik; Künzler, Florian; Barata, Filipe; Filler, Andreas; Büchter, Dirk; Brogle, Björn; Heldt, Katrin; Gindrat, Pauline; Farpour‐Lambert, Nathalie; l’Allemand, Dagmar

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-59144-5_36

Cited by 84 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The smartphone-based coaching intervention is based on the MobileCoach ( www.mobile-coach.eu ). The MobileCoach is an open source platform for the design, delivery and evaluation of scalable smartphone-based interventions [ 40 , 43 , 78 ]. It is available via the research and industry-friendly Apache 2 license and follows a client-server model.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Smartphone interfaces also enable the application of the so-called talk-and-tools paradigm [ 42 , 43 ]. That is, smartphones are able to offer scalable communication features with the help of conversational agents (the “Talk” , e.g., for motivational interviewing purposes), i.e., computer programs that imitate a conversation with a human being [ 44 – 47 ].…”

Section: Smartphone-based Coaching Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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PEACH, a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intentional personality change: study protocol of a randomized, wait-list controlled trial

et al. 2018

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BackgroundThis protocol describes a study that will test the effectiveness of a 10-week non-clinical psychological coaching intervention for intentional personality change using a smartphone application. The goal of the intervention is to coach individuals who are willing and motivated to change some aspects of their personality, i.e., the Big Five personality traits. The intervention is based on empirically derived general change mechanisms from psychotherapy process-outcome research. It uses the smartphone application PEACH (PErsonality coACH) to allow for a scalable assessment and tailored interventions in the everyday life of participants. A conversational agent will be used as a digital coach to support participants to achieve their personality change goals. The goal of the study is to examine the effectiveness of the intervention at post-test assessment and three-month follow-up.Methods/DesignA 2x2 factorial between-subject randomized, wait-list controlled trial with intensive longitudinal methods will be conducted to examine the effectiveness of the intervention. Participants will be randomized to one of four conditions. One experimental condition includes a conversational agent with high self-awareness to deliver the coaching program. The other experimental condition includes a conversational agent with low self-awareness. Two wait-list conditions refer to the same two experimental conditions, albeit with four weeks without intervention at the beginning of the study. The 10-week intervention includes different types of micro-interventions: (a) individualized implementation intentions, (b) psychoeducation, (c) behavioral activation tasks, (d) self-reflection, (e) resource activation, and (f) individualized progress feedback. Study participants will be at least 900 German-speaking adults (18 years and older) who install the PEACH application on their smartphones, give their informed consent, pass the screening assessment, take part in the pre-test assessment and are motivated to change or modify some aspects of their personality.DiscussionThis is the first study testing the effectiveness of a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intended personality change. Given that this novel intervention approach proves effective, it could be implemented in various non-clinical settings and could reach large numbers of people due to its low-threshold character and technical scalability.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Smartphone-based Coaching Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

PEACH, a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intentional personality change: study protocol of a randomized, wait-list controlled trial

et al. 2018

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“…The app, available on both iOS and Android, is based on the MobileCoach platform, developed by Filler et al [10,17]. The app consists of a chat interface where the users get diferent intervention messages and can respond from a set of choices.…”

Section: Study Goals and Intervention Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the State-of-Receptivity for mHealth Interventions

Künzler

Mishra

Kramer

et al. 2019

Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol.

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Recent advancements in sensing techniques for mHealth applications have led to successful development and deployments of several mHealth intervention designs, including Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI). JITAIs show great potential because they aim to provide the right type and amount of support, at the right time. Timing the delivery of a JITAI such as the user is receptive and available to engage with the intervention is crucial for a JITAI to succeed. Although previous research has extensively explored the role of context in users' responsiveness towards generic phone notiications, it has not been thoroughly explored for actual mHealth interventions. In this work, we explore the factors afecting users' receptivity towards JITAIs. To this end, we conducted a study with 189 participants, over a period of 6 weeks, where participants received interventions to improve their physical activity levels. The interventions were delivered by a chatbot-based digital coach ś Ally ś which was available on Android and iOS platforms.We deine several metrics to gauge receptivity towards the interventions, and found that (1) several participant-speciic characteristics (age, personality, and device type) show signiicant associations with the overall participant receptivity over the course of the study, and that (2) several contextual factors (day/time, phone battery, phone interaction, physical activity, and location), show signiicant associations with the participant receptivity, in-the-moment. Further, we explore the relationship between the efectiveness of the intervention and receptivity towards those interventions; based on our analyses, we speculate that being receptive to interventions helped participants achieve physical activity goals, which in turn motivated participants to be more receptive to future interventions. Finally, we build machine-learning models to detect receptivity, with up to a 77% increase in F1 score over a biased random classiier.

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“…Similar trends were observed in the 15 DESRIST articles. For example, Kowatsch et al [41] made their artefact available on an open source platform; and Mustafa et al [42] used open source components to build their artefact. The concept of open data was also applied in 2 DESRIST articles such as Fedorschak et al [43] using open data to help design their three artefacts.…”

Section: Search Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

We Need the Open Artefact: Design Science as a Pathway to Open Science in Information Systems Research

Doyle

Luczak‐Roesch

Mittal

2019

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Design science research (DSR) is facing some significant challenges such as how to make the knowledge and artefacts we create more accessible; exclusion from competitive funding schemes that require open practices; and a potential reproducibility crisis if scholars do not have access to everything needed to repeat past research. To help tackle these challenges we suggest that the community should strongly engage with open science, which has been growing in prominence in other fields in recent years. A review of current DSR literature suggests that researchers have not yet discussed how open science practices can be adopted within the field. Thus, we propose how the concepts of open science, namely open access, open data, open source, and open peer review, can be mapped to a DSR process model. Further, we identify an emerging concept, the open artefact, which provides an opportunity to make artefacts more accessible to practice and scholars. The aim of this paper is to stimulate a discussion amongst researchers about these open science practices in DSR, and whether it is a necessary step forward to keep the pace of the changing academic environment.

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Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Chat App for the Open Source Behavioral Health Intervention Platform MobileCoach

Cited by 84 publications

References 11 publications

PEACH, a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intentional personality change: study protocol of a randomized, wait-list controlled trial

PEACH, a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intentional personality change: study protocol of a randomized, wait-list controlled trial

Exploring the State-of-Receptivity for mHealth Interventions

We Need the Open Artefact: Design Science as a Pathway to Open Science in Information Systems Research

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