Addressing engagement in technology-based behavioural HIV interventions through paradata metrics.

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Behavioral Science
• Public Health

Background:

• Online behavioral interventions for HIV prevention and care are increasingly common.
• Assessing participant engagement is vital for understanding intervention outcomes.
• Paradata, or intervention usage metrics, offer insights into engagement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the reporting of participant online engagement using paradata in online behavioral HIV interventions.
• To highlight the value of paradata in technology-based health research.

Main Methods:

• Literature search of PubMed for studies published between January 1, 2016, and March 31, 2017.
• Included studies focused on online behavioral interventions for HIV prevention and/or care.
• Six studies met the inclusion criteria from 705 extracted citations.

Main Results:

• Only one of the six included studies reported paradata on participant engagement.
• A significant gap exists in reporting intervention usage metrics.

Conclusions:

• Systematic collection and analysis of paradata are essential for technology-based interventions.
• Paradata can strengthen evidence, advance behavior change theory, and inform scale-up efforts.
• Paradata can also examine dose-response relationships, identify core components, optimize resources, and facilitate meta-analyses.