Personalized Digital Interventions for Behavior Change: Insights from the MoM App Study

Fawad Taj, Michel C. A. Klein, Aart van Halteren

Abstract: This study evaluates the effectiveness of the digital intervention delivered using the MoM mobile app. The app uses different behavior as change techniques to bring about change via an explicit model of motivation as a mechanism of action for physical activity behavior. For a two-arm, single-blind experimental trial, 41 participants were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 20) and control (n = 21) groups. The Intervention group participants used a model-based personalized and adaptive app (MoM) for 40 days. Control participants used the same app without the motivation model, which was neither fully personalized nor adaptive. 9 days of baseline data and 40 days of treatment period data were collected for both intervention and control groups. Based on the linear mixed effect model, participants in the intervention group demonstrated more significant increases in steps per day (95% CI = 873.97–3497.19 p = 0.001) compared to their baseline. Still, changes in daily steps between-groups are not so significantly different. At the same time, enjoyment is the most related motive (95%, CI = 71.87–1339.14 p = 0.029) for calculating reward prediction error and increasing daily physical activity. Using an explicit model for the targeted determinant increases the effectiveness and gives more control to design personalized and adaptive interventions.

External IDs:dblp:conf/persuasive/TajKH25