How the Compendium was developed

Development of the Compendium

Learn more about the different stages of development that resulted in the Compendium of Dyadic Intervention Techniques (v2.0).

Systematic review

To examine Dyadic Intervention Techniques (DITs) used in dyadic behavior change literature, we first conducted a comprehensive systematic review on dyadic interventions with romantic partners to change health behaviors. The review included 165 studies (comprising 122 unique interventions). We clustered extracted Dyadic Intervention Techniques according to their theoretical determinants and sorted them according to the domains of the theoretical domains framework (Atkins et al., 2017; Cane et al., 2012).

The resulting Compendium (v1.0) included 76 intervention tasks in 160 versions of Dyadic Intervention Techniques, linked to 30 most proximal determinants of behavior change, nested in 10 theoretical domains.

Please see: Di Maio, Villinger et al., 2024 for the results of the systematic review.

Theoretical integration and refinements

As a next step, DITs were linked to theory. Theoretical models or conceptual frameworks integrating social dimensions, such as ecological and dyadic theories/models, were incorporated wherever applicable, linking DITs to specific theories and behavior change determinants.

To improve clarity, examples were integrated to illustrate each DIT. All examples are fictitious and represent only one of many possible illustrations. This also applies to the health behavior domain selected in each example. Further, minor refinements were applied to the wording of intervention tasks, behavior change determinants, and domain classifications.

Please note that listing of a technique does not imply its effectiveness.

The Compendium (v1.1) included 74 intervention tasks, linked to 38 most proximal determinants of behavior change, nested in 10 theoretical domains.

Delphi study

Expert consensus and feedback on specific DITs, as well as the overall utility of the Compendium for describing and developing dyadic interventions, were assessed across two rounds of a Delphi process and subsequent discussion.

Participants were 20 international experts in dyadic health behavior change (n = 20 first round, n = 19 second round). After each round, the Compendium was revised and adjusted based on the feedback and input from the experts.

The Compendium (v2.0) now includes 73 intervention tasks, linked to 32 most proximal determinants of behavior change, nested in 10 theoretical domains. You can download the entire Compendium (v2.0) as a PDF here.