Introduction to LifeGuide:

New software that allows YOU to create internet-delivered health-care interventions

Sarah Williams

Introducing LifeGuide• LifeGuide is the first open source tool permitting rapid,

flexible creation and modification of interventions.

• Enables researchers with no programming skills to develop and modify online interventions

• Open source & Free to use

– Improved cost-effectiveness of research

– Opens up use by new researchers

– Researchers can add own functionality

– Embedded in our VRE (LifeGuide Community) – sharing with other researchers

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What can you do in LifeGuide?  Deliver tailored advice based on

diagnostic questions, charted progress

Create questionnaires, change look and feel, add images and videos

Send automated emails and text messages (e.g. reminders)

Provide social support (e.g. discussion board, forums)

Automated randomisation, data collection

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LifeGuide Software – The Authoring Tool

• Used to create intervention pages

• Add content to intervention pages:

– text, interactive questions, buttons to navigate through the intervention, images and video.

• Flexible drag and drop interface for styling pages

• Templates

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Logic• Allows end-users to move

from one page to another

• Directs users to pages that are tailored to their needs.

• Logic is also used to perform many of the functions of LifeGuide including

– Feedback messages

– Randomisation

– Scoring questionnaire items

– Automated e-mails

Show page1

Show page2

Show page3 if (page2.gender = “male”)

Show page4 if (page2.gender=“female”)

Show page5

Show page5.warning if (page2.smoking = “yes”)

• The LifeGuide Researcher Manual contains step-by-step tutorials to perform logic commands in LifeGuide

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Intervention Manager• Completed interventions can be

uploaded to the intervention manager

• Records:

– Participants’ responses to interactions

– What pages they used

• Data can then be exported to Excel

Interventions in development (funded by MRC, NIHR, EC, DoH)

• smoking cessation

• weight reduction (diet and physical activity promotion)

• cognitive-behavioural therapy (8 sessions) for irritable bowel syndrome

• e-learning and assessment for NHS staff (smoking cessation trainers)

• intervention to reduce antibiotic prescribing in GPs across Europe

• many more in preparation ...

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The Internet Doctor

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Future of the LifeGuide• added functionality as

desired (open source)

• added connectivity (remote monitoring, NHS links)

• different modalities (mobile computing)

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The LifeGuide Community• Download software and help materials

• Support from other users - networks of researchers, forum, demos of how to use different logic functions

• Collaboration and supervision – share and discuss interventions with own research team, work together on interventions (e.g. translating into other languages)

• Dissemination – share and discuss interventions with wider e-health community (demo interventions)

• Testing with end-users

Acknowledgements

Health psychologists:

Lucy Yardley

Susan Michie

Judith Joseph

Sarah Williams

Leanne Morrison

Computer scientists:

Dave de Roure

Gary Wills

Mark Weal

Adrian Osmond

David Fowler

Pei Zhang19

Funded by the ESRC as a node of the national programme for Digital Social Research

To receive LifeGuide Community newsletters email

V.Hayter@soton.ac.uk

For more information about how you can use LifeGuide go to www.lifeguideonline.org