A smartphone “app”-delivered randomized factorial trial targeting physical activity in adults

Abstract

Rapid technological development has challenged researchers developing mobile moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) interventions. This 12-week randomized factorial intervention aimed to determine the individual and combined impact of a self-monitoring smartphone-app (tracking, feedback, education) and two theory-based modules (goal-setting, points-based feedback) on MVPA, key psychosocial outcomes, and application usage. Adults (N = 116; M = 41.38 ± 7.57) received (1) a basic self-monitoring app, (2) the basic app plus goal setting, (3) the basic app plus points-based feedback, or (4) the basic app plus both modules. All individuals increased MVPA by more than 11 daily minutes. Those with points-based feedback demonstrated still higher levels of MVPA and more favorable psychosocial and app usage outcomes across the intervention. Those with access to in-app goal setting had higher levels of app usage relative to those without the component. It is imperative that effective digital intervention "ingredients" are identified, and these findings provide early evidence to this effect. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT02592590.

Your Personal Motivator is with You: A Systematic Review of Mobile Phone Applications Aiming at Increasing Physical Activity

“…In Consolvo et al [18], users wished to set goals at a lower level, even though they performed more PA with the challenging goals. Collectively, users mostly considered high goals as too ambitious, which could be the reason for the non-significant effects in Fanning et al [128]. For users receiving "low" goals, studies mostly reported positive effects on PA [115,122,123,137].…”

“…Of the studies, 78.0% (n = 32/41) analyzed feedback, considered in a multitude of forms, with some studies using more than one form. Feedback was represented as bar graphs and a virtual map [98,[116][117][118][119][120]; audio feedback from virtual trainers [77]; illustrations through avatars [17,55,59,75,121,[123][124][125]127]; tailored text and email messages [94,[128][129][130]; real time, self-monitoring, receiving reminders, GPS tracking, tempo of music, and biofeedback [18,19,54,77,86,89,98,119,120,122,123,126,128,[131][132][133][134][135].…”

“…Goals can be (1) app-set, based on users' PA baseline; (2) user-set, with goals set either independently by users or by following researchers' recommendations; or (3) a mix of app-and user-set, where users choose among app-provided predefined goals. Levels of goal challenges are either higher or lower: (1) higher levels mean more challenging goals are formulated, typically in absolute numbers (e.g., taking 10,000 steps/day), or as challenging increases in PA (e.g., 20% weekly increase in steps/day), or as workout sessions planned by a (virtual) trainer (e.g., running activities, 1 km/session) [16,18,56,94,98,119,128]; (2) lower goals are less challenging and are also formulated as an absolute increase in PA (e.g., 10% weekly increase in steps/day) or as a gradual increase [115,117,118,122,123,126,136,137].…”

“…Based on vote counting, for high goals there were two quantitative studies, one of which provided non-significant effects [128] and another provided supportive results [16]. Four other qualitative studies (of a total of five qualitative studies) [18,56,94,119] provided supportive results, and another qualitative study [98] provided mixed results on PA. For low goals, there were four qualitative and four quantitative studies.…”

“…A total of 17.0% (n = 7/41) of the studies included rewards such as badges, butterflies, trophies, ribbons, stars '*', electronic postcards [17,18,98,116,128], encouraging messages, and collectable points [94,115]. Administration of rewards followed the same pattern in all studies; users received the first reward upon initial PA performance and then further rewards by additional PA performance and attaining goals.…”