Digital Interventions and Behaviour Change - Making a Difference in Managing Congestive Heart Failure
Background and Aim Population ageing coupled with a rise in chronic illness is placing a greater demand on our healthcare system. This demand on healthcare has led to a greater need for older adults with chronic health conditions to actively engage in personal behaviour change to manage their conditions and improve their quality of life. The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Community has a growing body of research pertaining to the ways that Behavioural Change Techniques (BCTs) have been integrated into digital applications and intervention systems.1 However, the limitations as to how these interventions have been evaluated has led to the existing research having little impact.2 3 This study will explore the design strategies and theories that currently exist about implementing digital BCTs.
Methods The population of interest in this research is older adults with congestive heart failure (CHF). Four studies will be conducted to address the research objectives. Each study will provide specific requirements data, including qualitative, quantitative and digital health data which will inform the functionality and interactivity of the overall digital intervention which will be evaluated in a longitudinal crossover trial. This will enable a comprehensive mapping between existing theory and the practical implementation of any application.
Conclusion It is hoped that with close attention to health professionals’, carers’ and older adults’ feedback, the behavioural traits that need to be changed can be identified. By assessing the user’s preferences to interfaces, it should be possible to map features of the application to a behavioural response. This will be a step towards understanding ‘why’ specific design techniques work regarding digital interventions.