Text message preferences among individuals with type 2 diabetes: A brief report of an online survey study

Tailoring text message interventions (TMIs) can help individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) to adhere to health behaviors. This study is part of the development of an adaptive TMI that uses participant characteristics and ongoing feedback to send text messages to participants. As a first step, 100 adults with T2D were surveyed to assess their preferences for different text message types (i.e., well-being, physical activity [PA], diet, and self-care) and identify participant characteristics associated with those preferences. Univariate analyses showed that employed individuals and those with more education preferred PA messages, those with a longer duration of T2D preferred self-care messages, and those who wished to change a health behavior preferred messages related to that behavior. These findings demonstrate that participants with specific characteristics prefer different message content, which could be used to inform text message delivery and may point to questions that could be used to tailor TMI content.