Engagement and disengagement with digital interventions

Abstract

Aims: 1. Highlight the potential for qualitative research to inform intervention development and enhance engagement and uptake. 2. Describe how quantitative analyses can highlight patterns of engagement and disengagement and inform future interventions. 3. Discuss linking engagement in specific intervention components to behavioural outcomes and participant demographics. Rationale: Online interventions are a promising method of delivering behaviour change interventions but there is a need to boost engagement to improve outcomes. In-depth qualitative research can be used to understand and overcome barriers to uptake and engagement. Quantitative analyses can then be carried out to explore how participants engage and disengage with intervention components in a depth that is not possible with other modes of delivery, enabling links to behavioural outcomes and participant demographics. Summary: The first two presentations focus on the role of qualitative research in maximising engagement and uptake of digital interventions. Firstly, FS will present the results of qualitative interviews with participants of a large e-health intervention exploring reasons for non-uptake and disengagement. KB will then demonstrate how an in-depth structured qualitative process to intervention development was used to optimise uptake and engagement in an online intervention for hypertension. The remaining presentations describe quantitative analyses of online interventions which have shown promising outcomes. IM will report on the usage of an international digital intervention for people with low health literacy (n=1041) investigating engagement in relation to interactivity and audio-visual presentations. MS will then describe an in-depth usage analysis (n=536) demonstrating what triggered high and low levels of engagement in an online weight management intervention. Finally, HD will present a series of RCTs of eHealth interventions, with an emphasis on how participant demographics impact on engagement. The discussant has expertise in online interventions and will provide a commentary on the presentations and facilitate discussion arising from the studies.