Design and Development of a Digital Weight Management Intervention (ToDAy): Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background The Tailored Diet and Activity (ToDAy) study aims to build on the campaign by adding a digital intervention with the potential to provide wide-reaching, cost-effective weight management support. Objective The ToDAy study aims to build a tailored intervention using mobile technology to improve diet and physical activity behaviours in adults with overweight and obesity. The main objectives were to identify behavior change techniques for diet and physical activity (PA) change for weight loss and explore preferences for digital intervention features that would be effective in changing diet and PA behaviors. Methods This qualitative study uses the principles of a person-based approach to intervention development; the behavioral intervention technology framework; and the capability, opportunity, motivation, and behavior (COM-B) framework. Focus groups and telephone interviews were conducted with 56 adults in Western Australia. Open-ended questions and example intervention features were used to explore the usability and acceptability of the self-monitoring tools, knowledge about effective weight-loss strategies, and acceptability of tailored feedback. Findings from the focus groups and interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Qualitative findings revealed an awareness of key public health messages but a lack of confidence in how to perform these behaviors to help manage their weight. A total of 4 major themes were identified and mapped to the domains of the COM-B framework: (1) misinformation, (2) environmental support, (3) social norms, and (4) confidence. Conclusions This study explores users’ capability, opportunity, and motivation to perform the target behaviors for weight loss. The findings suggested that a digital weight management intervention using a mobile food record and activity trackers to inform tailored feedback may be acceptable and feasible. Participants expressed a preference for simple expert advice, digital self-monitoring tools, and visual feedback. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR2-10.2196/12782

A knowledge-based system for personalised lifestyle recommendations: Design and simulation of potential effectiveness on the UK Biobank data

“…The BCW provides a framework to develop complex interventions that is comprehensive, coherent and linked to a behavioural model, the COM-B model. This framework has been used to develop digital interventions that are both accepted by users and effective for a variety of behaviours, including improving diet [19], [20], [21], increasing physical activity [19], [22], [23] and reducing sedentary Fig. 1: High-level diagram of the proposed system.…”

“…The BCW provides a framework to develop complex interventions that is comprehensive, coherent and linked to a behavioural model, the COM-B model. This framework has been used to develop digital interventions that are both accepted by users and effective for a variety of behaviours, including improving diet [19], [20], [21], increasing physical activity [19], [22], [23] and reducing sedentary behaviour [24], management of hypertension [25] and diabetes [26], [27], smoking cessation [28], [29], alcohol reduction [30] and medication adherence [31], [32] or discontinuation [33]. The steps needed to develop an intervention following the BCW are: 1) Specifying the target behaviour; 2) identifying theoretical domains that explain the behaviour; 3) identifying how to target the theoretical domains; 4) selecting behaviour change techniques.…”

Training Australian Dietitians in Behavior Change Techniques Through Educational Workshops: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

“…The COM-B model posits that an individual’s capability (ie, physical and psychological capability), opportunity (ie, social and physical opportunity), and motivation (ie, reflective and automatic) interact in a bidirectional way and can explain behavior [ 14 ]. As such, interventions informed by these constructs have been effective in eliciting changes in knowledge and behavior [ 15 , 16 ], alongside the use of behavior change techniques [ 17 , 18 ]. Behavior change techniques can be considered the individual units or “active ingredients” that target components of behavior that need to change [ 6 ].…”

Personalised lifestyle recommendations for type 2 diabetes: Design and simulation of a recommender system on UK Biobank Data

“…The BCW provides a framework to develop complex interventions that is comprehensive, coherent and linked to a behavioural model, the COM-B model. This framework has been used to develop digital interventions that are both accepted by users and effective for a variety of behaviours, including improving diet [ 23 – 25 ], increasing physical activity [ 23 , 26 , 27 ] and reducing sedentary behaviour [ 28 ], management of hypertension [ 29 ] and diabetes [ 30 , 31 ], smoking cessation [ 32 , 33 ], alcohol reduction [ 34 ] and medication adherence [ 35 , 36 ] or discontinuation [ 37 ].…”