Email and text message prompts to engage users of the HeLP Diabetes web-based intervention Seminar

• Web-based interventions provide effective and potentially cost-effective models for  improving health outcomes as they deliver health information and services that are widely disseminated, confidential, and can be tailored to needs of the individual user.
• Web-based interventions have been used successfully in many health domains.
• However, their effectiveness is limited by low usage rates, with non-engagement a major challenge.
• The use of prompts has been suggested as a way to promote engagement.

In this seminar I will provide an introduction to an ongoing PhD about developing, evaluating and implementing email and text message prompts using the MRC guidance for complex interventions, to engage users of a web-based intervention targeting people living with type 2 diabetes.

I will summarise findings from a systematic review about technology-based strategies to engage users of digital interventions and preliminary results of testing the email and text message prompts over a period of 12 months as well as describe the specific objectives and methodology of a randomised controlled study to evaluate the prompts, and finally discuss the challenges encountered when attempting to conduct an interview study.