| dc.description.abstract | Background and Purpose:
It has recently been found that prolonged sedentary behaviour (SB) is associated with
increased risks of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality and other negative
health outcomes. Early research has suggested that breaking up SB into smaller bouts can
have a positive impact on health. Majority of interventions to change SB have been
implemented in the workplace and there has been limited research utilising smartphone
applications to break up SB. Smartphone ownership has risen in the past number of years
and offers an optimal tool for implementing SB interventions in all settings. The purpose of
this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a smartphone-based point-of-choice
prompting application on decreasing SB in a healthy adult population compared to education
only.
Methods
The study had a randomised controlled trial design. Eight participants (87% female, mean
age= 29 (9.72) years old) wore an ActivPAL monitor for 7-days at baseline to collect 5-days
of data. Participants were then randomised to a control and intervention group for a 1-week
intervention period. The intervention group (n=4, age=33.25 (12.53)) received an education
leaflet and downloaded the Rise and Recharge smartphone application, which prompted
them to walk 15-steps after 30-minutes of SB. The control group (n=4, age=25 (4.24))
received the education leaflet only. After the intervention period participants wore the
ActivPAL monitor for another 7-day period to collect 5-days of data. Sleep time was
removed and data was analyzed.
Results:
It was found that the intervention group decreased their total sitting time and increased their
total stepping time and total steps more than the control group. It was also found that the control group increased their sit-to-stand transitions and decreased the number of sitting
events longer than 30-minutes more than the intervention group. However, an independent
t-test showed that none of these changes reached statistically significance (p<0.05). A
paired t-test also showed there was no statistical change from baseline to post-intervention
measure for any of the outcome measures in either group (p<0.05).
Conclusion
Smartphone-based point-of-choice prompts could have the potential to decrease SB,
however larger sample sizes and longer intervention periods are needed to confirm this
conclusion. | en |
