EHealth WhatsApp for social support

EHealth WhatsApp for social support: Design lessons

Simons, L.P.A. (TU Delft Interactive Intelligence)
van den Heuvel, Wouter A.C. (Health Coach Programma)
Jonker, C.M. (TU Delft Interactive Intelligence)

2020

WhatsApp was evaluated as group support tool for a high impact healthy lifestyle intervention, with 11 young professionals. Users valued the WhatsApp group as an attractive social support addition to the existing eTools and personal coaching. Based on preliminary results: 1) the WhatsApp group generated higher participation than most other social media; 2) deploying social media use motives; 3) possibly due to the relatively high 'presence' and 'engagement' attributes of WhatsApp; 4) contributing to healthy behaviours and health advocacy. Peer coaching was confirmed as promising. However, participation declined after the initial weeks. A design lesson was that users wanted more support for community forming. Several improvement suggestions are provided.

Blended care
Efficacy
EHealth
Healthy lifestyle
Motivation
Peer coaching
Service design
Social media
Social support
WhatsApp group
Work site health

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2cebd691-c042-4d48-89de-26db6a0b8588

https://doi.org/10.1504/IJNVO.2020.108857

2021-12-06

1470-9503

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 23 (2), 112-127

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2020 L.P.A. Simons, Wouter A.C. van den Heuvel, C.M. Jonker