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Three stage-based expert system interventions for smoking, high-fat diet, and unsafe sun exposure were evaluated in a sample of 2,460 parents of teenagers. Eighty-four percent of the eligible parents were enrolled in a 2-arm randomized control trial, with the treatment group receiving individualized feedback reports for each of their relevant behaviors at 0, 6, and 12 months as well as a multiple behavior manual. At 24 months, the expert system outperformed the comparison condition across all 3 risk behaviors, resulting in 22% of the participants in action or maintenance for smoking (vs. 16% for the comparison condition), 34% for diet (vs. 26%), and 30% for sun exposure (vs. 22%). Proactive, home-based, and stage-matched expert systems can produce significant multiple behavior changes in at-risk populations where the majority of participants are not prepared to change.
Prochaska et al. (Thu,) studied this question.