Evaluating Persuasive Reminders and Suggestions in a Weight Management mHealth Intervention

The widespread use of mobile phones has created new mHealth opportunities that allow individuals to track and change their behavior. Designing engaging and practical behavior change support systems remains central to mHealth. Computer-human dialogue support features are recognized as effective in prompting compliance, enhancing desired habits, and changing attitudes, making them widely used in mHealth applications. Although these features may reinforce task completion and overall adherence to the intervention, their influence on maintaining compliance and related outcomes remains underexplored. We conducted an observational study (n = 79) to examine the role of reminders and suggestions in a weight management mobile intervention. High compliance rates with reminders and suggestions were observed in more than 70% of users. Task completion was linked to weight loss; however, the association between opening content and weight loss was reduced when overall app interaction was considered. These findings may inform the design of future mHealth interventions.