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Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial

BACKGROUND: Website-delivered physical activity interventions are successful in producing short-term behavior change. However, problems with engagement and retention of participants in these programs prevent long-term behavior change. New ways of accessing online content (eg, via smartphones) may en...

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Autores principales: Kirwan, Morwenna, Duncan, Mitch J, Vandelanotte, Corneel, Mummery, W Kerry
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Gunther Eysenbach 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22522112
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1950
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author Kirwan, Morwenna
Duncan, Mitch J
Vandelanotte, Corneel
Mummery, W Kerry
author_facet Kirwan, Morwenna
Duncan, Mitch J
Vandelanotte, Corneel
Mummery, W Kerry
author_sort Kirwan, Morwenna
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Website-delivered physical activity interventions are successful in producing short-term behavior change. However, problems with engagement and retention of participants in these programs prevent long-term behavior change. New ways of accessing online content (eg, via smartphones) may enhance engagement in these interventions, which in turn may improve the effectiveness of the programs. OBJECTIVE: To measure the potential of a newly developed smartphone application to improve health behaviors in existing members of a website-delivered physical activity program (10,000 Steps, Australia). The aims of the study were to (1) examine the effect of the smartphone application on self-monitoring and self-reported physical activity levels, (2) measure the perceived usefulness and usability of the application, and (3) examine the relationship between the perceived usefulness and usability of the application and its actual use. METHODS: All participants were existing members of the 10,000 Steps program. We recruited the intervention group (n = 50) via email and instructed them to install the application on their smartphone and use it for 3 months. Participants in this group were able to log their steps by using either the smartphone application or the 10,000 Steps website. Following the study, the intervention group completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived usability and usefulness of the smartphone application. We selected control group participants (n = 150), matched for age, gender, level of self-monitoring, preintervention physical activity level, and length of membership in the 10,000 Steps program, after the intervention was completed. We collected website and smartphone usage statistics during the entire intervention period. RESULTS: Over the study period (90 days), the intervention group logged steps on an average of 62 days, compared with 41 days in the matched group. Intervention participants used the application 71.22% (2210/3103) of the time to log their steps. Logistic regression analyses revealed that use of the application was associated with an increased likelihood to log steps daily during the intervention period compared with those not using the application (odds ratio 3.56, 95% confidence interval 1.72–7.39). Additionally, use of the application was associated with an increased likelihood to log greater than 10,000 steps on each entry (odds ratio 20.64, 95% confidence interval 9.19–46.39). Linear regression analysis revealed a nonsignificant relationship between perceived usability (r = .216, P = .21) and usefulness (r = .229, P = .17) of the application and frequency of logging steps in the intervention group. CONCLUSION: Using a smartphone application as an additional delivery method to a website-delivered physical activity intervention may assist in maintaining participant engagement and behavior change. However, due to study design limitations, these outcomes should be interpreted with caution. More research, using larger samples and longer follow-up periods, is needed to replicate the findings of this study.
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spelling pubmed-33765162012-06-19 Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial Kirwan, Morwenna Duncan, Mitch J Vandelanotte, Corneel Mummery, W Kerry J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Website-delivered physical activity interventions are successful in producing short-term behavior change. However, problems with engagement and retention of participants in these programs prevent long-term behavior change. New ways of accessing online content (eg, via smartphones) may enhance engagement in these interventions, which in turn may improve the effectiveness of the programs. OBJECTIVE: To measure the potential of a newly developed smartphone application to improve health behaviors in existing members of a website-delivered physical activity program (10,000 Steps, Australia). The aims of the study were to (1) examine the effect of the smartphone application on self-monitoring and self-reported physical activity levels, (2) measure the perceived usefulness and usability of the application, and (3) examine the relationship between the perceived usefulness and usability of the application and its actual use. METHODS: All participants were existing members of the 10,000 Steps program. We recruited the intervention group (n = 50) via email and instructed them to install the application on their smartphone and use it for 3 months. Participants in this group were able to log their steps by using either the smartphone application or the 10,000 Steps website. Following the study, the intervention group completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived usability and usefulness of the smartphone application. We selected control group participants (n = 150), matched for age, gender, level of self-monitoring, preintervention physical activity level, and length of membership in the 10,000 Steps program, after the intervention was completed. We collected website and smartphone usage statistics during the entire intervention period. RESULTS: Over the study period (90 days), the intervention group logged steps on an average of 62 days, compared with 41 days in the matched group. Intervention participants used the application 71.22% (2210/3103) of the time to log their steps. Logistic regression analyses revealed that use of the application was associated with an increased likelihood to log steps daily during the intervention period compared with those not using the application (odds ratio 3.56, 95% confidence interval 1.72–7.39). Additionally, use of the application was associated with an increased likelihood to log greater than 10,000 steps on each entry (odds ratio 20.64, 95% confidence interval 9.19–46.39). Linear regression analysis revealed a nonsignificant relationship between perceived usability (r = .216, P = .21) and usefulness (r = .229, P = .17) of the application and frequency of logging steps in the intervention group. CONCLUSION: Using a smartphone application as an additional delivery method to a website-delivered physical activity intervention may assist in maintaining participant engagement and behavior change. However, due to study design limitations, these outcomes should be interpreted with caution. More research, using larger samples and longer follow-up periods, is needed to replicate the findings of this study. Gunther Eysenbach 2012-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3376516/ /pubmed/22522112 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1950 Text en ©Morwenna Kirwan, Mitch J Duncan, Corneel Vandelanotte, W Kerry Mummery. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 20.04.2012. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Kirwan, Morwenna
Duncan, Mitch J
Vandelanotte, Corneel
Mummery, W Kerry
Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title_full Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title_fullStr Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title_full_unstemmed Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title_short Using Smartphone Technology to Monitor Physical Activity in the 10,000 Steps Program: A Matched Case–Control Trial
title_sort using smartphone technology to monitor physical activity in the 10,000 steps program: a matched case–control trial
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22522112
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1950
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