Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jun 18, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 8, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
A Beginner’s Guide to Applying Artificial Intelligence to Behavioral Interventions
ABSTRACT
Digital behavioral interventions play a crucial role in chronic disease management. However, their effectiveness is often limited by challenges related to scalability, personalization, and long-term patient engagement. Artificial intelligence (AI) may be a promising solution because it allows for interventions to dynamically adapt to individual needs, thus providing capabilities for personalization that goes beyond traditional behavioral interventions. As the field of AI is rapidly evolving, many clinical researchers may be interested in adopting AI, however they may lack the technical knowledge or the necessary guidance to effectively integrate AI into their interventions. This viewpoint article provides a structured introduction to AI, covering foundational concepts relevant to behavioral interventions. Additionally, based on our experience in incorporating AI into a self-management intervention for individuals with systemic sclerosis, we developed a practical checklist to help guide clinical researchers who are novices in AI through the AI adoption process. This checklist outlines essential considerations, including defining project goals, selecting AI tools, assembling an interdisciplinary team, addressing ethical concerns, and ensuring long-term sustainability.
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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.