Interactive Communication Technology and Processing of Behavioral Health Change Messages

Abstract

Consumer processing of interactive communication technology (ICT) messages is an understudied area. It is incumbent upon the Informatics community to partner with various health content and population domain experts to design healthcare information products that increase reach, improve awareness, and meet consumer needs. This research is a secondary analysis of a larger study to develop and pilot test an interactive, multimedia computer program as an adjunct to usual clinical care in an effort to reduce smoking in low-income rural Indiana communities. The objective of this research was to measure the degree of consumer processing of health behavioral change messages delivered by ICT. The sample size for this research was 30 subjects. Degree of consumer message processing was high (mean processing score=80.5, SD=6.837). Instruments to assess the number of actionable cessation responses (ACRs) and cognitive changes were completed at the 3-month follow-up. A relationship was observed between degree of message processing and making a quit attempt (rbis=.384, p=.044). Knowledge scores improved over baseline measures (t=3.123, p=.004). These results suggest that ICT is feasible for promoting the processing of cessation messages and increasing consideration of ACRs in low-income rural Indiana populations.