Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: May 3, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: May 3, 2024 - Jun 28, 2024
Date Accepted: Sep 5, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Impact of Providing a Personalized Data Dashboard on Ecological Momentary Assessment Compliance among College Students Who Use Substances: A Pilot Micro-randomized Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
The landscape of substance use behavior among young adults has observed rapid changes across time. Intensive longitudinal designs are ideal for examining and intervening on substance use behavior in real-time but rely on high participant compliance in study protocol, representing a significant challenge for researchers.
Objective:
The current study evaluated the effect of including a personalized data dashboard (DD) in a text-based survey prompt on study compliance outcomes among college students participating in a 21-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study.
Methods:
Participants (N=91; 67% female, 92% White) were college students who engaged in recent alcohol and cannabis use. Participants were randomized to either complete a 21-day EMA protocol with 4 prompts/day (EMA Group) or complete the same EMA protocol with one personalized message and a DD indicating multiple metrics of progress in the study, delivered at one randomly selected prompt/day (EMA+DD Group) via a micro-randomized design. Study compliance, completion time, self-reported protocol experiences, and qualitative responses were assessed for both groups.
Results:
Levels of compliance were similar across groups. Participants in the EMA+DD Group had overall faster completion times, with significant week-level differences in weeks 2 and 3 of the study. The EMA+DD Group was marginally more likely to perceive the compensation level to be adequate and the protocol as less burdensome. Qualitative findings revealed EMA+DD participants perceived that seeing their progress facilitated engagement. Within the EMA+DD Group, providing a DD at the moment-level did not significantly impact participants’ likelihood of completing the EMA or completion time at that particular prompt, with the exception of the first prompt of the day
Conclusions:
Providing a DD may be useful to increase engagement, particularly for researchers aiming to assess health behaviors shortly after a survey prompt is deployed to participants’ mobile devices.
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Copyright
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