Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 15, 2019
Date Accepted: May 16, 2019
Health Education on Mobile Devices: A Pilot Study of Human Presence and Mobile Technologies on College Students’ Sun Protection
ABSTRACT
Background:
Health promotion and education programs are increasingly being adapted and developed for delivery via digital technologies. With this shift toward digital health approaches, it is important to identify design strategies in health education and promotion programs that enhance participant engagement and promote behavior change.
Objective:
The objective of the current study was to examine the impact of a pilot mHealth educational intervention regarding skin cancer and sun protection perceptions among American college students.
Methods:
A sample of 136 college students aged 18 years or above participated in the current study in a lab setting, which examined the individual and combinatory effects of multiple dimensions of digital technologies on a health outcome in a 2 (interactivity: high vs. low) x 2 (human presence: absence vs. presence) x 2 (screen size: big screen vs. small screen) between-subjects design. Outcomes included attitudes toward the information, various dimensions of trust (affective trust focusing on personal bonds or feelings and cognitive trust related to judgments of the reliability of information), and intentions to use sun protection.
Results:
Generally, the presence of human characters in the health educational message demonstrates effectiveness, producing more favorable attitudes (p < .001), greater intentions to use sun protection (p = .001), as well as higher affective trust (p = .003). Further, delivering educational health messages on a large screen (i.e., iPad) was associated with greater heuristic processing (p = .04) and higher affective trust (p < .001), whereas messages on a small screen (i.e., iPhone) was associated with greater systematic processing (p = .02) and higher cognitive trust (p = .006). Interestingly, while interactivity did not lead to more favorable attitudes towards the message, it did lead to greater intentions to use sun protection (p = .04).
Conclusions:
This experimental study indicates that features of digital health intervention design can influence its impact on recipients. Effects on attitudes, trust, and behavioral intentions were found for conditions with human presence, highlighting the importance of including this feature in mHealth programs. This pilot study demonstrates the acceptability and feasibility of an mHealth educational intervention manipulating human presence and mobile technologies and promoting college students’ sun protection.
Citation

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