PLOS Digit Health. 2026 Jul 28;5(7):e0001604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0001604. eCollection 2026 Jul.
ABSTRACT
Chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer require sustained lifestyle changes and self-management, yet traditional care models often provide limited support for long-term behavior change. Digital health technologies, particularly virtual agents, computer-generated characters simulating human-like interactions through verbal and nonverbal cues, offer new ways to provide personalized, scalable, and continuous support. However, the ways in which distinct components within such digital health technologies, including those used in chronic care interventions, are chosen and combined remain underreported. We conducted a systematic scoping review to map how behavior change techniques (BCTs), health data types, and delivery channels are rationalized, combined, and applied in virtual agent-delivered interventions for chronic condition management. The review followed established scoping review frameworks and adhered to PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines. A search was performed across PubMed, Scopus, PsycInfo, WebofScience, and IEEE Xplore in September 2024. Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. We examined the rationales reported by authors for intervention design, categorized as theory-driven, practice-driven, empirically-driven, mixed, or not explicitly stated. Few studies explained why they selected specific techniques or how health data and delivery channels were intended to interact. Across studies, BCTs were identified but often not explicitly labelled. The most common agent-delivered techniques were self-monitoring, feedback, instruction on how to perform a behavior, and prompts and cues. These techniques were typically supported by subjective self-reports (e.g., symptoms, behaviors), objective data (e.g., step counts, blood pressure), adherence data (e.g., activity completion) and user preference data (e.g., preferred timing of reminders). Delivery channels comprised smartphone or tablet apps. This review provides the first systematic map of how BCT-health data-delivery channel combinations are applied in virtual agent interventions for chronic condition management. It highlights foundational design patterns and reporting gaps, emphasizing the need for transparent, theory-informed reporting to guide future development of adaptive, evidence-based digital health tools.
PMID:42520066 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pdig.0001604