Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 18, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 30, 2020
Developing an Adaptive Mobile Intervention to Address Risky Substance Use among Adolescents and Emerging Adults: A usability study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Substance use among adolescents and emerging adults (A/EAs) remains an important public health problem, associated with morbidity and mortality. Mobile health (mHealth) provides a promising approach to deliver just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI) to prevent escalation of use and substance use-related consequences.
Objective:
The purpose of this paper is to describe the iterative development and initial feasibility and acceptability testing of a mHealth smartphone app designed to reduce escalation in use, called MiSARA. We present findings from a formative study examining feasibility and acceptability of this app.
Methods:
We used social media advertisements to recruit youth (n=39; ages 16-24; who screened positive for past-month binge drinking or recreational cannabis use) into the study. Participants used the MiSARA app for 30 days, with feasibility and acceptability data reported at 1-month follow-up. We also present descriptive data regarding behavior change over time.
Results:
Findings show that most participants (79.5%) at least somewhat liked the app, with most (74.4%) rating MiSARA as three or more stars (out of 5). Almost all participants preferred MiSARA to other modes of data collection (82.1%) and were comfortable self-reporting sensitive information on the app platform (92.3%); however, most also felt it could be more interactive (69.2%). In addition, participants’ substance use declined over time, and those reporting using the app more often reported less substance use at 1-month follow-up than those who reported using it less often.
Conclusions:
Findings suggest that the MiSARA app is a promising platform for JITAI delivery, with future trials needed to optimize timing and dose of messages and determine efficacy.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.