Interactive, Personalized Simulation May Change Behavioral Intentions in T2D

A woman using an interactive and personalized simulation on her phone
A woman using an interactive and personalized simulation on her phone
An interactive, personalized simulation can change behavioral intentions among individuals with type 2 diabetes.

HealthDay News — An interactive, personalized simulation can change behavioral intentions among individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D), according to a study published in JMIR Diabetes.

Bryan Gibson, DPT, PhD, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and colleagues conducted a within-subjects experiment to test the efficacy of an interactive, personalized simulation that demonstrated the acute effect of physical activity on blood glucose.

Potential participants were directed through 7 tasks, including baseline intentions, interactive simulation, and post-simulation outcome expectancy. The authors examined whether participants’ outcome expectancies regarding walking would shift toward the outcome presented in the interactive stimulation, and whether intentions to walk increased. A total of 1335 individuals provided complete data.

The researchers observed an increase in participants’ intentions to walk in the coming week, with increases in general intention and minutes of walking in the past week vs those planned for the coming week (mean difference, 33.5 minutes). 

On examination of qualitative feedback and data from the drawing task, some participants were found to have difficulty understanding the website, leading to a post-hoc subset analysis. In this analysis, the effects regarding outcome expectancies were stronger.

“A novel interactive simulation is efficacious in changing the outcome expectancies and behavioral intentions of adults with T2DM,” the authors write. “We discuss applications of our results to the design of mobile health interventions.”

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Reference

Gibson B, Yingling L, Bednarchuk A, Janamatti A, Oakley-Girvan I, Allen N. An interactive simulation to change outcome expectancies and intentions in adults with type 2 diabetes: within-subjects experiment.  JMIR Diabetes. 2018; 3(1):e2.