Preadolescent Students' Engagement With an mHealth Intervention Fostering Social Comparison for Health Behavior Change: Crossover Experimental Study.

Raoul Ceasar Yannic Nuijten Pieter Van Gorp Tom Borghouts Pascale LeBlanc Pauline E W van den Berg Astrid Kemperman Ehsan Hadian Monique Simons

Published in: Journal of medical Internet research (2021)

When using social comparison to engage preadolescents with an mHealth tool, an intergroup setting, rather than an intragroup competition, motivated them to engage with the app but did not necessarily motivate them to perform more activities. It seems that the number of unique activities that preadolescents perform depends on the activeness of a role model. Moreover, this effect is amplified by preadolescents' perceptions of closeness to that role model.

Keyphrases

healthcare
mental health
randomized controlled trial
primary care
social media
health information
risk assessment