Leveraging social media for preventive care-A gamification system and insights.

Patient compliance is a significant factor in improving health outcomes. However, because of deferred benefits of treatment or lifestyle recommendations, patients frequently fail to comply with their medication, therapy or simply exercise or diet advice given by care providers until their health conditions deteriorate. As poor adherence remains a significant yet insufficiently addressed health issue, it is critical to create effective interventions as part of the solutions. Previous studies indicate that peer supporting and social gaming can be useful for improving compliance. To understand how different motivation factors affect user behavior through social media, the authors constructed a healthcare compliance website with built-in behavior analyses so that they might conduct experiments. Users’ health compliance levels can be reported to the website and shared among consenting social members for discussion or competition. Their theoretic models for behavior analyses include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and psychological game theory.

The authors’ preliminary analysis showed that people applying social media for healthcare compliance could be motivated differently and act strategically during their social exchanges.