UNASSIGNED: To develop the MoA Ontology, we (1) defined the ontology\'s scope; (2) identified, labelled and defined the ontology\'s entities; (3) refined the ontology by annotating (i.e., coding) MoAs in intervention reports; (4) refined the ontology via stakeholder review of the ontology\'s comprehensiveness and clarity; (5) tested whether researchers could reliably apply the ontology to annotate MoAs in intervention evaluation reports; (6) refined the relationships between entities; (7) reviewed the alignment of the MoA Ontology with other relevant ontologies, (8) reviewed the ontology\'s alignment with the Theories and Techniques Tool; and (9) published a machine-readable version of the ontology.
UNASSIGNED: An MoA was defined as \"a process that is causally active in the relationship between a behaviour change intervention scenario and its outcome behaviour\". We created an initial MoA Ontology with 261 entities through Steps 2-5. Inter-rater reliability for annotating study reports using these entities was α=0.68 (\"acceptable\") for researchers familiar with the ontology and α=0.47 for researchers unfamiliar with it. As a result of additional revisions (Steps 6-8), 23 further entities were added to the ontology resulting in 284 entities organised in seven hierarchical levels.
UNASSIGNED: The MoA Ontology extensively captures MoAs of behaviour change interventions. The ontology can serve as a controlled vocabulary for MoAs to consistently describe and synthesise evidence about MoAs across diverse sources.