Motivated information avoidance in an mHealth weight loss intervention: Associations between unmet behavioral goals and likelihood of viewing program messages

Background Program engagement is positively associated with improved outcomes in mobile health (mHealth) interventions, but little is known about which factors may increase or decrease the likelihood of participants viewing program messages. This study examined the association between daily behavioral goal achievement and likelihood of reading daily messages, and if this relationship is moderated by baseline depressive symptoms in an mHealth weight loss intervention. Methods Data come from a 12-week microrandomized pilot mHealth weight management trial that tested the effects of daily messages on behavioral goals among 52 young adults (78.8% female, 61.5% white, ages 21–35). Conditional growth curve modeling was used to regress message viewing indicators onto the number of daily behavioral goals that participants had not met at the time of message receipt, with testing for moderation by depressive symptoms and controlling for covariates clustered within participants over time. Results For each additional goal not met at the time of message receipt, participants were 34.8% less likely to read any message sent (p < 0.0001), and this relationship did not appear to be related to depressive symptoms (p = 0.1). Conclusions Participants may tend to avoid reading program messages when they know they are not meeting goals in a program, possibly due to motivated information avoidance to prevent negative emotional reactions from anticipated negative feedback messages. Future interventions may want to consider ways to contact participants who may be struggling in programs and also avoiding viewing standard message pushes in order to reduce the risk of disengagement.