Lynch Rebecca, Cohn Simon
University of Cambridge, UK.
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
Health (London). 2016 Sep;20(5):523-38. doi: 10.1177/1363459315611939. Epub 2015 Oct 13.
Self-monitoring, by which individuals record and appraise ongoing information about the status of their body in order to improve their health, has been a key element in the personal management of conditions such as diabetes, but it is now also increasingly used in relation to health-associated behaviours. The introduction of self-monitoring as an intervention to change behaviour is intended to provide feedback that can be used by individuals to both assess their status and provide ongoing support towards a goal that may be formally set or remains implicit. However, little attention has been paid to how individuals actually engage in the process or act upon the information they receive. This article addresses this by exploring how participants in a particular trial ('Get Moving') experienced the process and nature of feedback. Although the trial aimed to compare the potential efficacy of three different monitoring activities designed to encourage greater physical activity, participants did not present distinctly different accounts of each intervention and the specifics of the feedback provided. Instead, their accounts took the form of much more extended and personal narratives that included other people and features of the environment. We draw on these broader descriptions to problematise the notion of self-monitoring and conclude that self-monitoring is neither solely about 'self' nor is it exclusively about 'monitoring'. We suggest that a more expansive social and material understanding of feedback can give insight into the ways information is made active and meaningful for individuals in their everyday contexts.
自我监测，即个体记录并评估有关自身身体状况的实时信息以改善健康，一直是糖尿病等病症个人管理的关键要素，但如今它在与健康相关行为方面的应用也越来越广泛。将自我监测作为一种改变行为的干预措施引入，旨在提供反馈，个体可利用这些反馈来评估自身状况，并为可能已正式设定或仍未明确的目标持续提供支持。然而，对于个体实际如何参与这一过程或根据所获信息采取行动，却鲜有关注。本文通过探究一项特定试验（“动起来”）的参与者如何体验反馈的过程和本质来解决这一问题。尽管该试验旨在比较三种旨在鼓励更多身体活动的不同监测活动的潜在效果，但参与者对每种干预措施以及所提供反馈的具体情况并未给出明显不同的描述。相反，他们的描述采用了更为详尽和个人化的叙述形式，其中包括其他人以及环境特征。我们借助这些更宽泛的描述对自我监测的概念提出质疑，并得出结论：自我监测既不完全关乎“自我”，也不只是关于“监测”。我们认为，对反馈进行更广泛的社会和物质层面的理解，能够洞察信息在个体日常情境中如何变得活跃且具有意义。
