Persuasive strategies in mobile insomnia therapy: alignment, adaptation, and motivational support

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the underlying principles of insomnia therapy in relation to the use of mobile technology and to present a starting point in the design of computerized insomnia treatment. Three general persuasive strategies are presented for the design of a virtual mobile coach that functions as a first intervention for insomnia treatment in a stepped care context. The presented strategies are based on general principles and methods from cognitive behavior therapy and communication theory. In this paper, it is assumed that the motivation to perform the therapy exercises significantly can be improved by individual tailoring to the characteristics and the circumstances of the user. Two of the presented strategies aim at tailoring the intervention: alignment and adaptation; the third strategy, motivational support, aims at the coach’s communicative activities to take away motivational blockades. Given the characteristics of the insomnia treatment, it is concluded that mobile and ubiquitous systems are promising monitoring and delivery devices in a first intervention, provided that the information is reliable and that obtrusiveness is minimized.