JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

The goal of this study was to find requirements for a behaviour change application for alcohol intervention and reduction. Motivation for the study comes from a preceding project work that studied a potential system that could be used to monitor and reduce alcohol consumption. The result of this project work suggested utilizing behaviour change theory for creating a mobile application to achieve the desired effect on the user. The study was conducted as a theory driven qualitative research study that gathered information from existing scientific research. The study utilized qualitative semi structured interviews and discussions from an online alcohol support forum for data gathering and analysis. The semi structured interviews were part of the previous project work and were also analysed for this study. Analysis for the forum discussions was done as content analysis.

The research found that the application should take advantage of suitable behaviour change techniques such as self-monitoring, having social support features or teaching the user coping skills. It should also maintain user’s engagement by having aesthetic design, being easy to use or by having the option to give feedback on using the application. Further the application could use unique smartphone features to stand out from other digital alcohol support methods. Also, the application should provide evidence of successful behaviour change based on scientific data and be built by using established behaviour change application models.

The small number of interviewees was a limitation for this study. Also, using content analysis to get information about people who are actively seeking help for alcohol use was a limiting factor on getting more precise information. In the future a more comprehensive qualitative interview process could be conducted that includes a wide variety of different kinds of potential users.