Cross-Cutting mHealth Behavior Change Techniques to Support Treatment Adherence and Self-Management of Complex Medical Conditions: Systematic Review

Abstract

Abstract Background Mobile health (mHealth) interventions have immense potential to support disease self-management for people with complex medical conditions following treatment regimens that involve taking medicine and other self-management activities. However, there is no consensus on what discrete behavior change techniques (BCTs) should be used in an effective adherence and self-management–promoting mHealth solution for any chronic illness. Reviewing the extant literature to identify effective, cross-cutting BCTs in mHealth interventions for adherence and self-management promotion could help accelerate the development, evaluation, and dissemination of behavior change interventions with potential generalizability across complex medical conditions. Objective This study aimed to identify cross-cutting, mHealth-based BCTs to incorporate into effective mHealth adherence and self-management interventions for people with complex medical conditions, by systematically reviewing the literature across chronic medical conditions with similar adherence and self-management demands. Methods A registered systematic review was conducted to identify published evaluations of mHealth adherence and self-management interventions for chronic medical conditions with complex adherence and self-management demands. The methodological characteristics and BCTs in each study were extracted using a standard data collection form. Results A total of 122 studies were reviewed; the majority involved people with type 2 diabetes (28/122, 23%), asthma (27/122, 22%), and type 1 diabetes (19/122, 16%). mHealth interventions rated as having a positive outcome on adherence and self-management used more BCTs (mean 4.95, SD 2.56) than interventions with no impact on outcomes (mean 3.57, SD 1.95) or those that used >1 outcome measure or analytic approach (mean 3.90, SD 1.93; P=.02). The following BCTs were associated with positive outcomes: self-monitoring outcomes of behavior (39/59, 66%), feedback on outcomes of behavior (34/59, 58%), self-monitoring of behavior (34/59, 58%), feedback on behavior (29/59, 49%), credible source (24/59, 41%), and goal setting (behavior; 14/59, 24%). In adult-only samples, prompts and cues were associated with positive outcomes (34/45, 76%). In adolescent and young adult samples, information about health consequences (1/4, 25%), problem-solving (1/4, 25%), and material reward (behavior; 2/4, 50%) were associated with positive outcomes. In interventions explicitly targeting medicine taking, prompts and cues (25/33, 76%) and credible source (13/33, 39%) were associated with positive outcomes. In interventions focused on self-management and other adherence targets, instruction on how to perform the behavior (8/26, 31%), goal setting (behavior; 8/26, 31%), and action planning (5/26, 19%) were associated with positive outcomes. Conclusions To support adherence and self-management in people with complex medical conditions, mHealth tools should purposefully incorporate effective and developmentally appropriate BCTs. A cross-cutting approach to BCT selection could accelerate the development of much-needed mHealth interventions for target populations, although mHealth intervention developers should continue to consider the unique needs of the target population when designing these tools.