Mobile Health Intervention Development Principles: Lessons from an Adolescent Cyberbullying Intervention

Abstract

Mobile health interventions are becoming increasingly popular, yet challenges in developing effective, user-friendly, evidence-based technology-augmented interventions persist. In this paper, we describe the process of developing an acceptable, evidence-based text messaging program for adolescents experiencing cyberbullying in hopes of addressing some of the challenges encountered by many researchers and developers in this area of intervention development. Participants were 23 adolescents with past-year histories of cyber-victimization and online conflict who enrolled in an hour long qualitative interview. Participants were asked to draw from personal experience to provide feedback on intervention content and design. Results focus on the main principles of intervention development for adolescents involved in cyberbullying: listening for the why in interviews, storyboarding to model abstract concepts, and strategies to develop acceptable theory and tone. Design process and final product design are described. The paper closes with final thoughts on the design process of mobile intervention development.