JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

A growing number of interventions incorporate digital and social technologies (e.g., social media, smartphone applications, and wearable devices) into their design for behavior change. However, due to a number of factors, including changing trends in technology use over time, results to date on the efficacy of these interventions have been mixed. An updated framework is needed to help researchers better plan behavioral technology interventions by anticipating the needed resources and potential changes in trends that may affect their interventions over time. Focusing on the domain of health interventions as a use case, we present the Adaptive Behavioral Components (ABC) model for technology-based behavioral interventions. ABC is composed of 5 components: basic behavior change, intervention/problem-focused characteristics, population/social/ behavioral characteristics, individual-level/personality characteristics, and technology characteristics. ABC was designed with the goals of 1) guiding high-level development for digital technology-based interventions, 2) helping interventionists consider, plan for, and adapt to potential barriers that may arise during longitudinal interventions, and 3) providing a framework to potentially help increase consistency of findings among digital technology intervention studies. We describe the planning of an HIV prevention intervention as a case study for how to implement ABC into intervention design. Using the ABC model to plan future interventions might help to improve the design of and adherence to longitudinal behavior change intervention protocols; allow these interventions to adapt, anticipate and prepare for changes that may arise over time; and to potentially improve intervention behavior change outcomes. Additional research is needed on the influence of each of ABC’s components to help improve intervention design and implementation.