mHealth Apps as Effective Persuasive Health Technology: Contextualizing the “Necessary” Functionalities

Persuasive health technology (PHT) is any technology purposely designed to influence, reinforce, change, or shape health-related attitudes or behaviors. Behavioral interventions can be developed for the purpose of maintaining or improving a person’s health status. Delivering behavioral interventions via PHTs is a promising approach for encouraging healthy behaviors among individuals and populations. Important attributes of all PHTs include their functionalities. A functionality refers to any useful features, functions, capabilities, or technologies associated with computer hardware or software. Creating effective PHTs requires a deliberate selection of appropriate functionalities for supporting specific behavioral interventions. The number and types of functionalities necessary to create an effective PHT will be specific to the context of each project, influenced by project objectives, stakeholder goals, behavioral interventions, and a variety of real-world constraints. Selecting appropriate functionalities can be challenging. Fortunately, there are frameworks and models developed specifically for guiding the design of PHTs. The Persuasive Systems Design model describes 4 categories, and 28 design principles for creating effective persuasive interventions. These same design principles could also be useful for guiding the selection of appropriate functionalities.