Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Oct 17, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 19, 2018 - Oct 25, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 25, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Understanding the Effect of Adding Automated and Human Coaching to an mHealth Physical Activity App for Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Stay Strong Intervention
ABSTRACT
Background:
While maintaining a healthy weight and physical conditioning are requirements of active military duty, many U.S. veterans rapidly gain weight and lose conditioning when they separate from active duty service. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions that incorporate wearables for activity monitoring have become common, but how to optimize engagement over time is unclear. Personalized health coaching, either through tailored automated messaging or by individual health coaches has the potential to increase the efficacy of mHealth programs. In an attempt to preserve conditioning and ward off weight gain we developed Stay Strong, a mobile app tailored to younger veterans that tracks physical activity monitored by Fitbit Charge 2 devices, and weight measured on a Bluetooth enabled scale.
Objective:
The goal of this study is to determine the effect of activity monitoring plus health coaching, compared to activity monitoring alone.
Methods:
In this randomized controlled trial, we sought to enroll 350 veterans who received an mHealth lifestyle intervention that combines the use of a wearable physical activity tracker and a Bluetooth enabled weight scale, with Stay Strong, a mobile app designed specifically for younger veterans. The Stay Strong app displays physical activity and weight data trends over time. Enrolled participants are randomized to receive either the Stay Strong app (active comparator arm) or Stay Strong app + Coaching, an enhanced version of the program that adds coaching features (automated tailored messaging with weekly physical activity goal, as well as up to three telephone calls with a health coach) (intervention arm), for one year. Our primary outcome is change at 12 months in physical activity, with weight, pain, patient activation, and depression serving as secondary outcome measures. All processes related to recruitment, eligibility screening, informed consent, HIPAA authorization, baseline assessment, randomization, the bulk of intervention delivery, and outcome assessment will be accomplished via the internet or smartphone app.
Results:
Study recruitment began in September 2017 and data collection is expected to conclude in 2019. A total of 465 participants consented to participate and 357 (77%) provided baseline levels of physical activity and were randomized to one of the two interventions.
Conclusions:
This novel randomized control trial will provide much-needed findings about whether the addition of telephone-based human coaching and other automated supportive coaching features will improve physical activity compared to using a smartphone app linked to a wearable device alone. Clinical Trial: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02360293
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.