Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Development of a Moderated Online Intervention to Treat Social Anxiety in First-Episode Psychosis.

Background: It is well established that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a significant clinical problem for individuals with a psychotic disorder. Comorbid social anxiety in individuals with psychosis has been associated with poorer premorbid functioning, increased depression, and a reduced quality of life. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is recommended for people with psychosis as a first-line psychological treatment; however, its focus and evaluation primarily revolves around reducing psychotic symptoms and not necessarily targeting comorbid social anxiety symptoms. We developed a novel online social cognitive behavioral intervention (entitled EMBRACE) specifically designed to treat social anxiety symptoms in first episode psychosis (FEP). Methods: The key clinical and engagement features of the intervention were established through integrating evidence-based material derived from 1) CBT-based treatment models for SAD, 2) relevant literature findings related to psychosis and its clinical correlates (e.g., shame, social rank, and its relationship with social anxiety and paranoia), 3) feedback from youth focus groups in order to inform a user-centered intervention design, and 4) a highly multidisciplinary collaborative development approach to design therapy comics. Results: A detailed description of the final version of the 12-week online social intervention to treat social anxiety in FEP is presented. Conclusion: The EMBRACE intervention was designed to provide young people with the necessary skills and confidence to overcome social anxiety within a supportive, safe online space. By design, it allows young people the opportunity to practice their newly learnt skills to connect with others and in doing so, learn to embrace their true authentic selves

Competitive orientation as a basis for personalization of competition feature and its contents in mobile applications promoting physical activity

Kilpailullisuus personoinnin perustana aktivisuussovelluksissa. Tiivistelmä. New technologies, such as web and mobile applications, propose a promising means for promoting healthier lifestyles. Behaviour change support systems (BCSSs) and persuasive systems are concepts that have been introduced to create a common grounds for studying such new technologies. Previous study has found that competition strategy, commonly used in persuasive systems, is perceived controversially both as motivating and demotivating for users. Furthermore, previous study has found that personalization of the system according to user characteristics can increase system persuasiveness. This thesis is one of the first studies to explore how the psychological construct of competitive orientation can be utilized as a basis for personalizing persuasive systems. More in particular, this thesis is the first study to explore how competitive orientation of an individual should be considered in the design of competition strategy. Two research methods were used: conceptual analysis and analysis of empirical data. Study results suggest that the competitive orientation of a user is one of the factors explaining the perceived persuasiveness of competition strategy. This study proposes that competition strategy should be personalized to match the user’s competitive orientation. Furthermore, this study suggests that the persuasive systems design model should be extended to include a feature of self-competition to leverage the power of the self-developmental aspect of competition to motivate behaviour change

Tailoring eHealth design to support the self-care needs of patients with cardiovascular diseases:a vignette survey experiment

Self-care support is a key cornerstone of treatment for patients with a cardiovascular disease. The success of any supportive intervention requires adaptation to the distinct needs of individuals. This requirement also applies to eHealth interventions. This study investigates how experts from multiple fields of science assess the potential success of different eHealth design strategies when matched to key self-care needs. An online vignette survey experiment was conducted. Nine vignettes representing different combinations of self-care needs (maintenance, monitoring, management) and eHealth persuasive design strategies (primary task support, dialogue support, social support) were evaluated. In total, 118 experts from 18 different countries participated in the survey. Their evaluations show primary task support as a promising design strategy across all self-care needs. In contrast, dialogue support and social support showed more promise for specific self-care needs. Above all, according to experts, the success of design strategies could be enhanced by (i) personalising the pacing of the intervention and (ii) tailoring the information to the literacy and culture of the person. Adding to that, self-care support should distinctly (iii) support the three self-care needs, be (iv) patient-centered, (v) support the collaboration with caregivers, and (vi) be aligned to the life goals and values of individuals

Predicting early user churn in a public digital weight loss intervention

Digital health interventions (DHIs) offer promising solutions to the rising global challenges of noncommunicable diseases by promoting behavior change, improving health outcomes, and reducing healthcare costs. However, high churn rates are a concern with DHIs, with many users disengaging before achieving desired outcomes. Churn prediction can help DHI providers identify and retain at-risk users, enhancing the efficacy of DHIs. We analyzed churn prediction models for a weight loss app using various machine learning algorithms on data from 1,283 users and 310,845 event logs. The best-performing model, a random forest model that only used daily login counts, achieved an F1 score of 0.87 on day 7 and identified an average of 93% of churned users during the week-long trial. Notably, higher-dimensional models performed better at low false positive rate thresholds. Our findings suggest that user churn can be forecasted using engagement data, aiding in timely personalized strategies and better health results

Persuading users towards environmentally friendly decisions with green information systems

Abstract. This literary survey aims to answer the question “how can we use information green information systems to persuade people to make pro-environmental decisions?” The fast economic growth of human societies has led to increased consumption of natural resources therefore deteriorating the ecological environment. With the rising number of concerns regarding the state of our climate and the environment new innovations are needed. The biggest challenges the environment faces are the consumption habits of the general population. There is real promise in interventions delivered using green information systems. Green information systems are technologies and systems that enable pro-environmental behaviour of people which drives the purpose of persuading behavioural change. Pro-environmental behaviour is any purposeful action that can reduce the negative impacts of that action to the environment. In an ideal situation a pro-environmental behaviour can even bring environmental benefits. Persuasion is the act of changing an individual, or a groups attitudes and behaviour to a desired direction. Persuasion is based on the voluntary nature of the behavioural change, and on the planned, indented outcome. Information systems that are designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviour are known as persuasive systems. A Behaviour Change Support Systems are persuasive systems where the persuasion is the reason for its existence. Nowadays persuasion and persuasive systems are part of the everyday life where persuasion techniques are used by advertisers and marketers. The persuasive systems design model offers three rings of consideration that aim to help the design, development, and evaluation of a persuasive system. There rings are the seven persuasive postulates, persuasive context, and persuasive features. Combining the strategies in persuasive systems design with gamification we can create an effective green information system