Henrike Quaree - Persuasive communication in e-mental health; the influence of e-mail and sms messages on adherence

In the last 15 years a growing number of face-to-face psychotherapies are being converted to online interventions. A fenomenon that often occurs in e-mental health-interventions is a low adherence, which negatively influences the effectiveness of the intervention. My research project examined the influence of communication techniques on adherence in e-mental health-interventions. A specific focus has been placed on communication techniques that are capable of sending messages by mobile phone or over the internet. The literature study of this research project shows that e-mail and sms are the most commonly used techniques for this purpose, but that very little research has been done on the effectiveness of these techniques in increasing adherence. A randomized control trial has been executed to compare the effectiveness of e-mail and sms in increasing adherence. This test did not show a significant difference in the effectiveness of these techniques. The effect size however showed that e-mailmessages had a medium positive effect on the adherence. Also, participants preferred e-mail over sms for receiving daily text messages. Follow-up research with a larger number of participants is recommended to conclusively show the influence of e-mail and other text messages on adherence.