Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Nov 27, 2024)
Date Submitted: Apr 11, 2023
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Effects of the WeChat mini program-based positive psychology intervention on psychological and health behavior motivation outcomes in patients with coronary heart disease
ABSTRACT
Background:
Psychological problems are highly prevalent among patients with coronary heart disease and cause poor health behavior. WeChat mini program-based positive psychology intervention may improve psychological problems and health behavior.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to preliminarily assess the feasibility and acceptability of the WeChat mini program-based positive psychology intervention and its efficacy on psychological and health behavior motivation outcomes in patients with coronary heart disease compared with a control group.
Methods:
Participants with coronary heart disease in the experimental group completed weekly positive psychology exercises delivered through the WeChat mini program for 6 weeks, while those in the control group received routine health education. Feasibility and acceptability were firstly evaluated of this study in a pilot study that recruited some participants in the experimental group. The Chinese version of Index of Well-being scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale were used to assess the effect of the intervention on psychological outcomes and the Treatment Self-Regulation Questionnaire were used to assess the effect of the intervention on health behavior motivation outcomes.
Results:
Twenty-eight participants completed all the exercises during the intervention period. Compared to the control condition, the WeChat mini program-based positive psychology intervention improved the subjective well-being (t=-2.755, P=0.008), positive affect (t=-2.489, P=0.013), no-smoking motivation (t=-2.051, P=0.045), regular exercise motivation (Z=-2.410, P=0.016), and healthy diet motivation (Z=-2.007, P=0.045) of the patients with coronary heart disease and reduced their negative affect (t=2.338, P=0.023).
Conclusions:
These preliminary findings showed that the WeChat mini program-based positive psychology intervention was feasible, acceptable, and associated with improvements in subjective well-being, affect, and health behavior motivation. Larger randomized controlled trials are needed to examine this intervention’s impact on health behavior adherence and other important outcomes. Clinical Trial: This study is registering with ClinicalTrials.gov.
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