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Persuasive Mobile Apps for Health and Wellness: A Comparative Systematic Review

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Persuasive Technology. Designing for Future Change (PERSUASIVE 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12064))

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Abstract

While majority of previous research focus on reviewing mobile health (mHealth) apps targeting specific health domain, this paper provides a comparative systematic review of mHealth apps across multiple health domains with the aim of deconstructing the persuasive strategies employed and their implementation. Specifically, we targeted four health domains (i.e., physical activity and fitness, diet, emotional and mental health, and health assessment and healthcare). We retrieved a total of 639 apps from Google Play out of which 80 popular apps were extracted (20 apps in each category). Three expert reviewers coded the apps using 32 persuasive strategies (PSs) based on Persuasive System Design (PSD) Model and Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion. Overall, out of the 80 mHealth apps reviewed, personalization is the most commonly employed PS (n = 77), followed by surface credibility (n = 69), trustworthiness (n = 66) and self-monitoring (n = 64). How the apps are implemented varies depending on the domain. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for designing mHealth apps to improve their persuasiveness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada

    Oladapo Oyebode, Chinenye Ndulue, Mona Alhasani & Rita Orji

Authors
  1. Oladapo Oyebode
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  2. Chinenye Ndulue
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  3. Mona Alhasani
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  4. Rita Orji
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Oladapo Oyebode .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Sandra Burri Gram-Hansen

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Tanja Svarre Jonasen

  3. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Cees Midden

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Oyebode, O., Ndulue, C., Alhasani, M., Orji, R. (2020). Persuasive Mobile Apps for Health and Wellness: A Comparative Systematic Review. In: Gram-Hansen, S., Jonasen, T., Midden, C. (eds) Persuasive Technology. Designing for Future Change. PERSUASIVE 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12064. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45712-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45712-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-45711-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45712-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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