Single-case experimental designs to evaluate novel technology-based health interventions

Technology-based interventions to promote health are expanding rapidly. assessing the preliminary efficacy of these interventions can be achieved by employing single-case experiments (sometimes referred to as n-of-1 studies). although single-case experiments are often misunderstood,they offer excellent solutions to address the challenges associated with testing new technology-based interventions. this paper provides an introduction to single-case techniques and highlights advances in developing and evaluating single-case experiments,which help ensure that treatment outcomes are reliable,replicable,and generalizable. these advances include quality control standards,heuristics to guide visual analysis of time-series data,effect size calculations,and statistical analyses. they also include experimental designs to isolate the active elements in a treatment package and to assess the mechanisms of behavior change. the paper concludes with a discussion of issues related to the generality of findings derived from single-case research and how generality can be established through replication and through analysis of behavioral mechanisms.