Mobile Health Apps: Can Behaviour Be Changed?
Date
2018-03-28
Authors
Garnett, Ashley
Courtney, Karen L.
Matthews, Judy
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Abstract
Despite the proliferation of health-related mobile device applications (apps), the majority of apps are rarely used. Further, there is limited evidence supporting their effectiveness in altering health behaviour outcomes. In an effort to delineate salient components of health behaviour interventions enacted by investigators, the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy (BCTT) was developed to uniformly describe the methods used in such research. Earlier work by members of our team examined the feasibility of applying the BCTT to functions embedded within health-related respiratory apps. A key finding was that very few of these mobile health apps incorporated strategies aimed at changing behaviour. Instead, most apps were functioning as untethered data storage.
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Keywords
Behaviour change, M-Health, Health Informatics, Mobile Health Applications