Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jul 18, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 14, 2023 - Sep 8, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 14, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Automated Messaging Delivered Synchronously with Behavioral Treatment for Weight Loss: A Qualitative Evaluation of User Experiences
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mobile health interventions for weight loss frequently utilize automated messaging. However, this intervention modality appears to have limited weight loss efficacy. Furthermore, data on users’ subjective experiences while receiving automated messaging interventions for weight loss is scarce, especially for more advanced interventions providing users with individually-tailored, data-informed feedback.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to characterize the experiences of individuals with overweight/obesity who received an automated messaging intervention for 6-12 months synchronously with behavioral weight loss treatment while enrolled in an ongoing clinical trial.
Methods:
Participants (N = 40) provided Likert-scale ratings of intervention acceptability and completed a structured qualitative interview. During the interview, participants were prompted to provide feedback on their experiences with the intervention system and generate ideas for improvement. Feedback from the structured interview was synthesized using thematic analysis.
Results:
Participants found the messages to be most useful for summarizing progress toward intervention goals, and least useful for suggesting new behavioral strategies. The mean overall acceptability of the intervention was moderate (2.67 out of 5). Two meta-themes emerged from the structured interviews, with participants indicating that although the messages provide useful reminders of intervention goals and skills, they fail to adequately capture their lived experiences while losing weight.
Conclusions:
Many participants found that the automated messaging intervention was not adequately tailored to their personal weight loss experiences. As such, future studies should explore alternative methods for message tailoring (e.g., allowing for a higher degree of participant input and interactivity) that may boost intervention engagement and efficacy. Clinical Trial: This qualitative study was not formally registered. The parent study was preregistered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05231824).
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
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.