“Do Email and SMS Prompts Stimulate Primary School Children to Revisit the Website of an E-Health Smoking Prevention Program?â€
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Abstract
Background
Dozens of internet-delivered computer-tailored interventions have been developed to promote a healthy lifestyle among participants. Improving the use and continued use of E-health programs is one of the largest challenges in the field of E-health. Prompts have shown to be effective in stimulating involvement of adults and adolescents in E-health programs and may prevent them from leaving the intervention before completion. However, the evidence concerning effectiveness of prompts among children is still scarce.
Objective
The aim of the present study is to investigate a) whether prompts (via email and SMS) are effective in prompting visits and revisit to a website containing information on smoking prevention for children, b) whether the content of the prompt is associated with more or less revisits and c) what are the characteristics of children who respond most to the prompts and reuse the website regularly.
Methods
In 2011, children (aged 10 – 11 years) of 162 Dutch primary schools participated in an internet-delivered smoking prevention intervention study. Participants in both the intervention and intervention + prompt group had to fill-out a web-based questionnaire concerning their smoking status and other smoking related factors. After completing the questionnaire they received computer-tailored feedback. In both intervention groups children were able to revisit the intervention website during the first year of the study which contained facts about non-smoking, animated anti-smoking videos or games on non-smoking. Children in the intervention + prompt group were stimulated to revisit the website by six prompt messages (email and SMS) addressing a new topic relevant to smoking prevention. A registration was made of all log-ins at the website based on the personal usernames of the participants. SPSS 19.0 was used to test for differences in use of the website between the intervention and intervention + prompt group by means of repeated measures analysis of variance. A linear regression analysis was carried out to assess the effects of prompts between both intervention groups.
Results
A total of 1288 children were included in the analyses. Children in the intervention + prompt group revisited (10,7%) the intervention website significantly more often (B= 1,55 (p< 0,01)) compared to children in the intervention only group (5,6%). Especially prompt messages with information about new animation videos (B= 0,18 (p< 0,01)) and new facts about (non-)smoking that were posted on the website (B= 0,41 (p= 0,05)) resulted in most revisits to the website. Children of low socioeconomic status showed, furthermore, to revisit the intervention website significantly more often (B= -0,81 (p< 0,01)) than children of a high socioeconomic status.
Conclusion
Although, the revisits to the E-health website were rather low, the present study indicated that prompts play a role in stimulating primary school children to revisit a website with information on smoking prevention. This is a first study that connected individual characteristics to information concerning the use of an E-health website. Hence, this study showed that low socioeconomic status groups are more stimulated by prompts than other subgroups.
Dozens of internet-delivered computer-tailored interventions have been developed to promote a healthy lifestyle among participants. Improving the use and continued use of E-health programs is one of the largest challenges in the field of E-health. Prompts have shown to be effective in stimulating involvement of adults and adolescents in E-health programs and may prevent them from leaving the intervention before completion. However, the evidence concerning effectiveness of prompts among children is still scarce.
Objective
The aim of the present study is to investigate a) whether prompts (via email and SMS) are effective in prompting visits and revisit to a website containing information on smoking prevention for children, b) whether the content of the prompt is associated with more or less revisits and c) what are the characteristics of children who respond most to the prompts and reuse the website regularly.
Methods
In 2011, children (aged 10 – 11 years) of 162 Dutch primary schools participated in an internet-delivered smoking prevention intervention study. Participants in both the intervention and intervention + prompt group had to fill-out a web-based questionnaire concerning their smoking status and other smoking related factors. After completing the questionnaire they received computer-tailored feedback. In both intervention groups children were able to revisit the intervention website during the first year of the study which contained facts about non-smoking, animated anti-smoking videos or games on non-smoking. Children in the intervention + prompt group were stimulated to revisit the website by six prompt messages (email and SMS) addressing a new topic relevant to smoking prevention. A registration was made of all log-ins at the website based on the personal usernames of the participants. SPSS 19.0 was used to test for differences in use of the website between the intervention and intervention + prompt group by means of repeated measures analysis of variance. A linear regression analysis was carried out to assess the effects of prompts between both intervention groups.
Results
A total of 1288 children were included in the analyses. Children in the intervention + prompt group revisited (10,7%) the intervention website significantly more often (B= 1,55 (p< 0,01)) compared to children in the intervention only group (5,6%). Especially prompt messages with information about new animation videos (B= 0,18 (p< 0,01)) and new facts about (non-)smoking that were posted on the website (B= 0,41 (p= 0,05)) resulted in most revisits to the website. Children of low socioeconomic status showed, furthermore, to revisit the intervention website significantly more often (B= -0,81 (p< 0,01)) than children of a high socioeconomic status.
Conclusion
Although, the revisits to the E-health website were rather low, the present study indicated that prompts play a role in stimulating primary school children to revisit a website with information on smoking prevention. This is a first study that connected individual characteristics to information concerning the use of an E-health website. Hence, this study showed that low socioeconomic status groups are more stimulated by prompts than other subgroups.
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