School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Preventive Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.
Health Commun. 2022 Apr;37(4):397-408. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1846273. Epub 2020 Nov 25.
Communicating within digital health interventions involves a range of behaviors that may contribute to the management of chronic illnesses in different ways. This study examines whether communication within a smartphone-based application for addiction recovery produces distinct effects depending on 1) the "level" of communication, defined as intraindividual communication (e.g., journal entries to oneself); dyadic communication (e.g., private messaging to other individuals); or network communication (e.g., discussion forum posts to all group members), and 2) whether individuals or messages. We operationalize these communication levels and behaviors based on system use logs as the number of clicks dedicated to each activity and assess how each category of system use relates to changes in group bonding and substance use after 6 months with the mobile intervention. Our findings show that (1) intraindividual exposure to one's own past posts marginally predicts decreased drug use; (2) dyadic production predicts greater perceived bonding; while dyadic exposure marginally predicts reduced drug use; (3) network production predicts decreased risky drinking. Implications for digital health interventions are discussed.
数字健康干预措施中的交流涉及一系列行为，这些行为可能以不同的方式有助于慢性病的管理。本研究考察了基于智能手机的成瘾康复应用程序中的交流是否会根据 1）“交流水平”产生不同的效果，该水平定义为个体内交流（例如，自我记录的日记条目）；对等式交流（例如，向其他个人的私人消息）；或网络交流（例如，向所有小组成员的讨论论坛帖子），以及 2）是个人还是消息。我们根据系统使用日志来操作这些交流水平和行为，将每个活动的点击次数作为指标，并评估每个系统使用类别与使用移动干预 6 个月后群体凝聚力和物质使用变化之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明：（1）个体对自己过去帖子的接触程度略微预示着吸毒量的减少；（2）对等式的产生预示着更大的感知凝聚力；而对等式的接触则预示着吸毒量的减少；（3）网络生产预示着饮酒风险的降低。讨论了数字健康干预措施的意义。
