Abstract
Despite increased interest in developing mobile technology-based interventions, little research has examined preferences and beliefs about using smartphones for psychosocial or health behavior change interventions, particularly among women with overweight/obesity residing in rural communities. The aims of this study were to examine the beliefs of pre- and inter-conceptional women about using smartphones and to examine the extent to which women’s preferences for using smartphones changed as a result of participating in study interviews. Forty women (M age = 28.2 years; M BMI = 31.4; 50% obese) participated in one-time 90-min interviews and completed questionnaires before and after the interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the frequency of women’s preferences for using smartphones and applications. Interviews were downloaded and transcribed; principles of thematic analysis were used to code the interviews and identify themes. Women identified advantages of using smartphones for behavioral interventions, including being convenient, useful, and able to provide social support. Primary disadvantages were annoyances and needing technology support for phone problems. Participating in interviews also resulted in significant improvements in participant willingness to use smartphones in health behavior change interventions. The study findings highlight the importance of understanding beliefs about using smartphones before designing effective smartphone-based interventions, especially for use with pre- and inter-conceptional women with overweight/obesity who may have unique challenges with study adherence. These findings also suggest beliefs about smartphone utility can be improved over the course of a brief interview that taps into technology-related preferences. Identifying advantages/disadvantages of smartphone use can inform intervention design. Future research should explore how to capitalize on strategies that enable the benefits of technology (e.g., convenience, social support) while minimizing participant barriers (e.g., distractions) to promote behavior change and facilitate intervention compliance.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.
Coughlin, S. S., Whitehead, M., Sheats, J. Q., Mastromonico, J., Hardy, D., & Smith, S. A. (2015). Smartphone applications for promoting healthy diet and nutrition: a literature review. Jacobs Journal of Food and Nutrition, 2, 21–35.
Derbyshire, E., & Dancey, D. (2013). Smartphone medical applications for women’s health: what is the evidence base and feedback? International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications, 2013, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/782074.
Dunsmuir, D. T., Payne, B. A., Cloete, G., Petersen, C. L., Gorges, M., Lim, J., et al. (2014). Development of mHealth applications for pre-eclampsia triage. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 18, 1857–1864.
Fanning, J., Mullen, S. P., & McAuley, E. (2012). Increasing physical activity with mobile devices: a meta-analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14, e161. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2171.
Green, J., & Browne, J. (2005). Analysing qualitative data. In N. Black, R. Raine, J. Green, & Browne (Eds.), Principles of social research (pp. 79–80). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2005). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation. Field Methods, 18, 59–82.
Hirst, J. E., Mackillop, L., Loerup, L., Kevat, D. A., Bartlett, K., Gibson, O., Kenworthy, Y., Levy, J. C., Tarassenko, L., & Farmer, A. (2015). Acceptability and user satisfaction of a smartphone-based, interactive blood glucose management system in women with gestational diabetes mellitus. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 9, 111–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1932296814556506.
Institute of Medicine. (2009). Weight gain during pregnancy: Reexamining the guidelines. In K. M. Rasmussen & A. L. Yaktine (Eds.), Committee to reexamine IOM pregnancy weight guidelines. Institute of Medicine, National Research Council Accessed on 20 June 2016 at: http://www.nap.edu/.
Kaar, J. L., Markovic, N., Amsden, L. B., Gilliland, J., Shorter, C. F., Peters, B., & Dabelea, D. (2016). The experience of direct outreach recruitment in the National Children’s Study. Pediatrics, 137(S4), 258–264.
Lindvall, K., Jenkins, P., Scribani, M., Emmelin, M., Larsson, C., Norberg, M., et al. (2015). Comparisons of weight change, eating habits, and physical activity between women in northern Sweden and rural New York State: results from a longitudinal study. Nutrition Journal, 14, 88. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12937-015-0078-0.
Marcus, B. H., & Forsyth, L. H. (2003). Motivating people to be physically active. Champaign: Human Kinetics.
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2012). Motivational interviewing: helping people change. New York: Guilford Press.
Riesch, S. K., Ngui, E., Ehlert, C., Miller, M. K., Cronk, C. A., Leuthner, S., et al. (2013). Community outreach and engagement strategies from the Wisconsin Study Center of the National Children’s Study. Public Health Nursing, 30, 254–265.
Robles, B., Frost, S., Moore, L., Harris, C. V., Bradlyn, A. S., & Kuo, T. (2014). Overweight and obesity among low-income women in rural West Virginia and urban Los Angeles County. Preventive Medicine, 67, S34–S39.
Symons Downs, D., & Hausenblas, H. A. (2004). Women’s exercise beliefs and behaviors during their pregnancy and postpartum. Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, 49, 138–144.
Symons Downs, D., & Hausenblas, H. A. (2005). Elicitation studies and the theory of planned behavior: a systematic review of exercise beliefs. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 6, 1–31.
Temel, S., van Voorst, S. F., Jack, B. W., Denktas, S., & Steegers, E. A. P. (2013). Evidence-based preconceptional lifestyle interventions. Epidemiological Reviews, 36, 19–30.
US Census Bureau (2016) State median income. Accessed from: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/index.html on May 30, 2018.
Wilcox, J. C., Campbell, K. J., McCarthy, E. A., Wilkinson, S. A., Lappas, M., Ball, K., et al. (2015). Testing the feasibility of a mobile technology intervention promoting healthy gestational weight gain in pregnant women (txt4two) – study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 16, 209–216. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-015-0730-1.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the contributions of Franny Wales and the Family Health Council of Central Pennsylvania in assisting with data collecteion for this project.
Funding
This project was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1 TR002014. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. Funding to support the first author in preparing this work was also provided by the National Heart, Lung,and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health through grant R01HL119245-01.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Standards
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the participating University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Downs, D.S., Smyth, J.M., Heron, K.E. et al. Beliefs About Using Smartphones for Health Behavior Change: an Elicitation Study with Overweight and Obese Rural Women. J. technol. behav. sci. 4, 33–41 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-018-0081-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-018-0081-3
Keywords
- Preconception
- Intervention
- Mobile phone technology