%0 Journal Article
%@ 1438-8871
%I Gunther Eysenbach
%V 15
%N 2
%P e22
%T Single-Case Experimental Designs to Evaluate Novel Technology-Based Health Interventions
%A Dallery,Jesse
%A Cassidy,Rachel N
%A Raiff,Bethany R
%+ University of Florida, Department of Psychology, PO Box 112250, Gainesville, FL, 32611, United States, 1 3522732182, dallery@ufl.edu
%K Research design
%K technology
%K mHealth
%K single-case design
%K preliminary efficacy
%D 2013
%7 08.02.2013
%9 Tutorial
%J J Med Internet Res
%G English
%X Technology-based interventions to promote health are expanding rapidly. Assessing the preliminary efficacy of these interventions can be achieved by employing single-case experiments (sometimes referred to as n-of-1 studies). Although single-case experiments are often misunderstood, they offer excellent solutions to address the challenges associated with testing new technology-based interventions. This paper provides an introduction to single-case techniques and highlights advances in developing and evaluating single-case experiments, which help ensure that treatment outcomes are reliable, replicable, and generalizable. These advances include quality control standards, heuristics to guide visual analysis of time-series data, effect size calculations, and statistical analyses. They also include experimental designs to isolate the active elements in a treatment package and to assess the mechanisms of behavior change. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues related to the generality of findings derived from single-case research and how generality can be established through replication and through analysis of behavioral mechanisms.
%M 23399668
%R 10.2196/jmir.2227
%U http://www.jmir.org/2013/2/e22/
%U https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2227
%U http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23399668