Increasing Physical Activity in Mothers Using Video Exercise Groups and Exercise Mobile Apps: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Abstract

Background: Women significantly decrease their activity levels in the transition to motherhood. Digital health technologies are low cost, scalable, and can provide an effective delivery mechanism for behavior change. This is the first study that examines the use of videoconferencing and mobile apps to create exercise groups for mothers. Objective:We tested the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of an individually adaptive and socially supportive physical activity intervention incorporating videoconferencing and mobile apps in mothers. Methods:The Moms Online Video Exercise (MOVE) Study was an 8-week, two-armed, webbased randomized trial comparing the effectiveness of a group exercise intervention to a waitlist control. Healthy mothers with at least one child under age 12 were recruited online, through Facebook and email listservs. Intervention participants joined exercise groups using videoconferencing (Google Hangouts) every weekday morning and exercised together in real time guided by exercise mobile apps (e.g. Nike+, Sworkit, etc.) of their choosing. Waitlist control participants had access to the list of recommended mobile apps and an invitation to join an exercise group after an 8-week period. The main outcomes assessed were self-reported moderate, vigorous, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) minutes per week in aggregate and stratified by whether women met Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for sufficient aerobic activity at baseline. Outcomes were measured through self-assessed online questionnaires at baseline and 8 weeks. Results:The intervention was effective at increasing exercise for inactive women, and proved to be feasible and acceptable to all participants. 64 women were randomized, 30 to intervention and 34 to control. Women attended 2.8 sessions per week. There was a strong, but not statistically significant, trend toward increasing moderate and vigorous minutes of physical activity for all women. As hypothesized, women in the pre-specified strata who were inactive at baseline (n=51) significantly increased their activity by an average of 56 MVPA minutes per week more in the intervention group (95% CI: 10.8, 100.7, P=.02). A corresponding statistically significant net increase of 21 (95% CI: 5.2, 36.8, P=.01) minutes of vigorous activity drove the difference in increased MVPA minutes for this stratum of inactive women. Inactive women in the intervention group reported promising reductions in depression, a statistically significant net decrease in their depression score, -4.1 (95% CI: -7.3, -0.8, P=.02). Conclusions:We found that a group exercise intervention using videoconferencing and mobile apps was a feasible and acceptable way to deliver a physical activity intervention to mothers with young children. The intervention significantly increased physical activity in inactive mothers. 1Further studies are needed to better establish how long these changes in physical activity can be maintained and whether these findings can be reproduced i...