Leveraging social media for preventive care-A gamification system and insights

Patient compliance is an important factor in improving health outcomes. However, due to deferred benefits of treatment or lifestyle recommendations, patients often fail to comply with their medication, therapy or simply exercise or diet advice given by care providers until their health conditions deteriorate. As poor adherence remains a significant yet inadequately addressed health issue, it is critical to create effective interventions as part of the solutions. Previous studies indicate that peer supporting and social gaming can be useful for improving compliance. To understand how different motivation factors affect user behavior through social media, a healthcare compliance website with built-in behavior analyses was constructed to conduct experiments. Users' health compliance levels can be reported to the website and shared among consenting social members for discussion or competition. The theoretic models for behavior analyses include Maslow's hierarchy of needs and psychological game theory. The preliminary analysis showed that people using social media for healthcare compliance may be motivated differently and act strategically during their social interactions.