SMART Family-Link Project: Using Information and Communication Technology to Improve Family Interventions and Promote Family Well-being in Hong Kong

Information and communications technology (ICT) as a global trend The last few decades have seen a dramatic rise in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet access. According to the World Bank, 1.33 per cent of individuals in the world were using the Internet in 1996; in 2006, this figure rose to 17.58 %; by 2016, 45.91 % of individuals were using the Internet. Concurrently, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions across the globe in the last two decades.

In line with the global trend, Hong Kong had 18.25 million mobile service subscribers in 2016. The Hong Kong Family and Health Information Trends Survey (FHinTs) under the Jockey Club FAMILY Project was conducted to monitor opinions and behaviours regarding family health, information use, and health communications. Our results showed that ICT platforms such as online websites, social media, and instant messages are widely used in Hong Kong. In FHinTs 2016 survey, 82.6% of the respondents had smartphones, and 48.8% had tablets. Similar findings from the Nielsen Media Index 2017 year-end report showed that 97% of all internet users in Hong Kong were using smartphones to access the internet. The amount of time spent online each day was 3.2 hours and 94% of people aged 12 to 64 were using the internet.

The role of ICT in enhancing family well-being in Hong Kong With the increasing use of ICT, family information can be easily accessed. According to the findings from FHinTs 2016, ICT was increasingly used as a method of family information seeking: 66.7% of respondents sought family information from online websites, compared with 53.6% in 2009. About 30.9% sought family information from social media such as Facebook, and 22.8% sought family information from instant messaging platforms such as WhatApp. Family information such as recreation (46.6%), family heath (22.9%) and elderly-related topics (17.9%) were most commonly sought. Also, family information seeking was associated with higher levels of family health, happiness, harmony, and overall family well-being. The associations were observed regardless of the type of sharing methods, such as face-to-face sharing or sharing via ICT means.

ICT in family interventions Alongside the growth in popularity of ICTs and its role in promoting family well-being, there is also a growing appreciation that ICTs such as internet-enabled devices and web-based applications can offer many advantages compared to traditional face-to-face approaches when delivering behaviour change programmes.

One of the biggest challenges of face-to-face programmes is diminishing reach and impact due to barriers to accessibility, cost-efficiency, flexibility to adapt to individuals, and structured intervention integrity . Using ICTs can address these barriers and may thus contribute to improving reach. ICT also helps facilitate access to interventions from a large variety of settings at all times, bringing the intervention to participants at times convenient to them and diminishing the influence of the situational constraints on intervention participation rates. The rise of ICT has created promising and potential new avenues and demand for implementing interventions related to mental health and parenting.