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Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study

OBJECTIVE: Sustained engagement with Internet-based behavioural interventions is crucial to achieve successful behaviour change outcomes. As this has been problematic in many interventions, a lot of research has focused on participants with little or no engagement. However, few studies have attempte...

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Autores principales: Vandelanotte, Corneel, Hooker, Cindy, Van Itallie, Anetta, Urooj, Anum, Duncan, Mitch J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9586392/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36269725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274975
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author Vandelanotte, Corneel
Hooker, Cindy
Van Itallie, Anetta
Urooj, Anum
Duncan, Mitch J.
author_facet Vandelanotte, Corneel
Hooker, Cindy
Van Itallie, Anetta
Urooj, Anum
Duncan, Mitch J.
author_sort Vandelanotte, Corneel
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: Sustained engagement with Internet-based behavioural interventions is crucial to achieve successful behaviour change outcomes. As this has been problematic in many interventions, a lot of research has focused on participants with little or no engagement. However, few studies have attempted to understand users with continuous long-term engagement, the so called ‘super engaged users’, and why they keep on using programs when everybody else has long stopped. Therefore, the aim of this research was to qualitatively examine characteristics, usage profile and motivations of super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps program. METHODS: Twenty 10,000 Steps users (10 with more than 1 year of engagement, and 10 with more than 10 years of engagement) participated in semi-structured interviews, that were transcribed and thematically analysed. RESULTS: Participants were aged 60 years on average, with more than half being overweight/obese and/or suffering from chronic disease despite logging high step counts (219 million steps per participant on average) on the 10,000 Steps platform. Participants indicated that the reasons for sustained use were that engaging the program had become a habit, that the program kept them motivated, and that it was easy to use. Few participants had suggestions for improvement or expressed there were program elements they did not like. Uptake of program innovations (e.g., app-version, use of advanced activity tracker instead of pedometer) was modest among the super engaged users. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study emphasise the need for digital health programs to incorporate features that will support the development of habits as soon as participants start to engage with the program. While a program’s usability, user-friendliness and acceptability are important to engage and retain new users, habit formation may be more important for sustained long-term engagement with the behaviour and the program.
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spelling pubmed-95863922022-10-22 Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study Vandelanotte, Corneel Hooker, Cindy Van Itallie, Anetta Urooj, Anum Duncan, Mitch J. PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVE: Sustained engagement with Internet-based behavioural interventions is crucial to achieve successful behaviour change outcomes. As this has been problematic in many interventions, a lot of research has focused on participants with little or no engagement. However, few studies have attempted to understand users with continuous long-term engagement, the so called ‘super engaged users’, and why they keep on using programs when everybody else has long stopped. Therefore, the aim of this research was to qualitatively examine characteristics, usage profile and motivations of super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps program. METHODS: Twenty 10,000 Steps users (10 with more than 1 year of engagement, and 10 with more than 10 years of engagement) participated in semi-structured interviews, that were transcribed and thematically analysed. RESULTS: Participants were aged 60 years on average, with more than half being overweight/obese and/or suffering from chronic disease despite logging high step counts (219 million steps per participant on average) on the 10,000 Steps platform. Participants indicated that the reasons for sustained use were that engaging the program had become a habit, that the program kept them motivated, and that it was easy to use. Few participants had suggestions for improvement or expressed there were program elements they did not like. Uptake of program innovations (e.g., app-version, use of advanced activity tracker instead of pedometer) was modest among the super engaged users. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study emphasise the need for digital health programs to incorporate features that will support the development of habits as soon as participants start to engage with the program. While a program’s usability, user-friendliness and acceptability are important to engage and retain new users, habit formation may be more important for sustained long-term engagement with the behaviour and the program. Public Library of Science 2022-10-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9586392/ /pubmed/36269725 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274975 Text en © 2022 Vandelanotte et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Vandelanotte, Corneel
Hooker, Cindy
Van Itallie, Anetta
Urooj, Anum
Duncan, Mitch J.
Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title_full Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title_fullStr Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title_short Understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 Steps online physical activity program: A qualitative study
title_sort understanding super engaged users in the 10,000 steps online physical activity program: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9586392/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36269725
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274975
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