Predictors of Participant Retention in a Guided Online Self-Help Program for University Students: Prospective Cohort Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Attrition is a persistent issue in online self-help programs, but limited research is available on reasons for attrition or successful methods for improving participant retention. One potential approach to understanding attrition and retention in such programs is to examine person-related variables (eg, beliefs and attitudes) that influence behavior. Theoretical models, such as the Theory of Planned Behavior, that describe conditions influencing human behavior may provide a useful framework for predicting participant retention in online-based program. OBJECTIVE: We examined predictors of participant retention in a guided online anxiety, depression, and stress self-help program for university students using the theory of planned behavior. We also explored whether age, symptom severity, and type of coaching (ie, email vs phone) affected participant retention. METHODS: 65 university students with mild to moderate depression, anxiety, and stress were enrolled in this prospective cohort study. Participants completed a questionnaire based on the theory of planned behavior prior to commencing the online-based program and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) during the assessment module of the program. Participant retention was operationalized as the number of program modules completed. RESULTS: Perceived control over completing the online program significantly predicted intention to complete the program (F3,62=6.7; P=.001; adjusted R(2)=.2; standardized beta=.436, P=.001). Age (standardized beta=.319, P=.03) and perceived behavioral control (standardized beta=.295, P=.05) predicted the number of program modules completed (F3,61=3.20, P=.03, adjusted R(2) =.11). Initial level of distress (ie, symptom severity) did not predict participant retention (P=.55). Participants who chose phone-based coaching completed more program modules than participants who chose email-based coaching (Mann-Whitney's U=137; P=.004). CONCLUSIONS: Participants' age, level of perceived behavioral control, and choice of interaction (ie, phone-based or email-based coaching) were found to influence retention in this online-based program.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".