Older Women’s Experiences of a Community-Led Walking Programme Using Activity Trackers

Abstract

Promoting physical activity amongst older adults represents a major public health goal and community-led exercise programmes present benefits in promoting active lifestyles. Commercial activity trackers potentially encourage positive behaviour change with respect to physical exercise. This qualitative study investigated the experiences and attitudes of older adults following a 6-week community-led walking programme utilising activity trackers. Eleven community-dwelling older women aged 60+ completed individual phone interviews following their involvement in the programme. The programme, codesigned with a group of senior citizens, equipped participants with wrist-worn activity trackers and included biweekly check-in sessions with a researcher to monitor progress and support motivation. Interviews explored participants’ experiences of the programme and of using activity trackers for the purpose of becoming more active. A thematic analysis produced three main themes: ‘programme as a source of motivation’, ‘user experiences with the technology’ and ‘views on social dimension of the programme’. Overall, participants highlighted the self-monitoring function of activity trackers as most beneficial for their exercise levels. This study provides insights into the personal and social factors perceived by older adults in relation to being part of a community-led programme using activity trackers. It highlights the role of the programme and trackers in maintaining motivation to stay active.

Designing community-level integral interventions for active ageing: a systematic review from the lens of community-based participatory research

“…Two studies conducted exit interviews to collect this information, which could reveal useful feedback for intervention improvement. tracking, and whether one is more intrinsically or extrinsically motivated (45). It has also been found that some OA prefer competition (45), while others prefer collaboration (42) when engaging in physical activities.…”

“…Three studies started the co-design based on a concept that researchers already drafted, for example, walking activity (38), social prescribing (47), and community displays (42). The stakeholders were involved to co-design the details of these concepts; three studies started without preconceived concepts from the researchers, used co-design to understand the challenges of the community, and interventions were then developed (39,47,48); one study helped the community to realise its own initiative, where the researchers positioned themselves as facilitators (45). As illustrated by the studies above, three levels of co-design emerged in our review.…”

“…Especially when participants need to learn the technology in the intervention. For instance, in the intervention using trackers to promote physical activities, the researchers inquired about the previous experiences of participants with tracking devices and then provided tailored support for each participant (45). While developing the makerspace, it was observed that OA got stuck or gave suggestions not suitable for a makerspace, i.e., some OA do not know what a makerspace is (44).…”

“…Brien et al (2021) meet participants regularly to explain the bene ts of physical activities in their daily lives(45) Frei et al (2019). invited each OA to set short-and long-term goals that they wanted to achieve by participating in the intervention (38) Mao et al (2020).…”

A Toolkit for Co-Designing towards Community-Based Active Ageing: Lessons Learned during Development

“…In the first category, even though OA are the end-users of an intervention, the intervention is co-designed among experts only (e.g., healthcare professionals), and tools have been developed to facilitate this kind of co-design (e.g., [ 16 ]). The second category includes studies that report interventions that are co-designed with OA, although there is no description of how the co-design was undertaken (e.g., [ 17 , 18 ]). The last category in the literature includes studies that report the details of how they engaged OA in the co-design or refer to the co-design methods applied (e.g., [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]).…”