Are Brief e-Health Interventions More Effective Than In-Person Brief Interventions?
Overall, there appears to be no detectable difference between e-health and in-person interventions in the short-term, but in-person brief interventions may be more effective over longer periods of time (i.e., beyond 14 weeks). However, additional research is needed as very few studies directly compare e-health to in-person Brief Interventions. Thus, we recommend that in-person brief interventions should be offered if possible (i.e., the practitioner is trained and there is time) but that brief e-health interventions are offered when time is limited, with hard to reach populations, when another intervention will not be offered, or in conjunction with a brief in-person intervention.
| Chapter |
Recommendation |
Grade of recommendation |
| 7.3 |
In-person brief interventions should be preferred to e-health interventions because they may have longer-term impacts than e-health interventions. |
B |
| 7.4 |
Brief e-health interventions should be offered when time is limited, as a first step in a longer intervention, with hard to reach populations, when another intervention will not be offered, when it is preferred by the patient, or in conjunction with an in-person brief intervention. |
GPP |
| 7.5 |
E-health interventions which include some human assistance (face-to-face, or via text message or email) may be more effective than fully automated interventions, notwithstanding the resource and scalability limitations of doing so. |
B |