Abstract
The healthcare industry is rapidly adopting digital coaching for chronic disease prevention and management. Human-computer interactions are affected by the way a digital coach communicates, including the tone of voice, choice of words, and type of feedback provided. A single interaction with a digital coach can be the determining factor in whether a user chooses to interact with the coach again. There is currently a dearth of research on the necessary characteristics of successful interactions between digital health coaches and users during long-term health coaching relationships. This research provides a conceptual framework of the coaching relationship between coaches and coachees for long-term chronic disease prevention and management that establishes a basis for the design and development of relational digital health coaching. We conducted qualitative interviews with expert healthcare providers to better understand key strategies and methods used by human coaches to 1) Guide coachees toward successful outcomes and 2) Build trust and rapport with coachees. We describe five coaching stages resulting from these interviews as well as key elements of coaching within each stage and the necessary personality of a digital health coach to accomplish the goals of each coaching stage. This work may inform the design of other digital coaches in the healthcare space.
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This work was funded by Lark Technologies. We thank our participants and UX researchers for their valuable contributions.
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Oh, Y., Arias, K., Auster-Gussman, L., Graham, S. (2023). Designing Relational AI-Powered Digital Health Coaching for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management. In: Duffy, V.G. (eds) Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14029. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35748-0_7
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