Abstract
The open source platform MobileCoach (mobile-coach.eu) has been used for various behavioral health interventions in the public health context. However, so far, MobileCoach is limited to text message-based interactions. That is, participants use error-prone and laborious text-input fields and have to bear the SMS costs. Moreover, MobileCoach does not provide a dedicated chat channel for individual requests beyond the processing capabilities of its chatbot. Intervention designers are also limited to text-based self-report data. In this paper, we thus present a mobile chat app with pre-defined answer options, a dedicated chat channel for patients and health professionals and sensor data integration for the MobileCoach platform. Results of a pretest (N = 11) and preliminary findings of a randomized controlled clinical trial (N = 14) with young patients, who participate in an intervention for the treatment of obesity, are promising with respect to the utility of the chat app.
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We would like to thank the CSS Insurance and the Swiss National Science Foundation for their support through grants 159289 and 162724.
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Kowatsch, T. et al. (2017). Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Chat App for the Open Source Behavioral Health Intervention Platform MobileCoach. In: Maedche, A., vom Brocke, J., Hevner, A. (eds) Designing the Digital Transformation. DESRIST 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10243. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59144-5_36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59144-5_36
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