Abstract
To improve understanding of how interventions work or why they do not work, there is need for methods of testing hypotheses about the causal mechanisms underlying the individual and combined effects of the components that make up interventions. Factorial mediation analysis, i.e., mediation analysis applied to data from a factorial optimization trial, enables testing such hypotheses. In this commentary, we demonstrate how factorial mediation analysis can contribute detailed information about an intervention's causal mechanisms. We briefly review the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) and the factorial experiment. We use an empirical example from a 25 factorial optimization trial to demonstrate how factorial mediation analysis opens possibilities for better understanding the individual and combined effects of intervention components. Factorial mediation analysis has important potential to advance theory about interventions and to inform intervention improvements.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 84-89 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Translational behavioral medicine |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2022 |
Funding
Support for Drs Collins, Pfammatter, Pellegrini, Spring and Marchese was provided in part by R01DK097364 (MPIs: Spring/Collins). Ms Strayhorn acknowledges support from F31DA052140; Dr Marchese acknowledges support from award number F31DK120151; Dr Collins acknowledges support from P50DA039838, P01CA180945, and P30DA011041; Dr Brick acknowledges support from the Penn State SSRI and from award number 1U24AA027684-01; Dr Spring acknowledges support from P30CA060553 and UL1TR001422. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health.
Keywords
- Factorial experiment
- Mediation analysis
- Multiphase optimization strategy
- Optimization trial
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Applied Psychology