Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 17, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 23, 2019 - Jun 18, 2019
Date Accepted: Sep 24, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effects of mobile app interventions on sedentary time, physical activity and fitness in older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
High sedentary time, low physical activity (PA), and low physical fitness place older adults at increased risk for chronic diseases, functional decline and premature mortality. Interventions to reduce sedentary time, increase physical activity and improve fitness could potentially enhance the health and well-being of older adults. However, sustained positive changes in physical activity and sedentary time beyond twelve months have not been consistently achieved through traditional interventions. Mobile apps, applications that run on mobile platforms, may help promote active living.
Objective:
We aimed to quantify the effect of mobile app interventions on sedentary time, PA and fitness in older adults in this systematic review and meta-analysis.
Methods:
We systematically searched five electronic databases for trials investigating effects of mobile-app interventions on sedentary time, PA and fitness among community-dwelling older adults aged ≥55 years in September 2018. We calculated pooled standardised mean differences (SMD) in these outcomes between intervention and control groups after the intervention period. We performed a risk of bias assessment and Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) certainty assessment.
Results:
Six trials (486 participants, 67% women; 68±6years) were included (five trials in meta-analysis). Mobile app interventions may be associated with decreases in sedentary time (SMD=−0.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] −1.02, 0.03), increases in PA (505 steps/day (95% CI -80.5, 1092) and increases in fitness (SMD=0.31, 95% CI -0.09, 0.70) in trials ≤3 months and with increases in PA (752 steps/day, 95% CI -146, 1652) in trials ≥6 months. Risk of bias was low for all but one study. The quality of evidence was moderate for PA and sedentary time, and low for fitness.
Conclusions:
Mobile app interventions have the potential to promote changes in sedentary time and PA over the short-term but results did not achieve statistical significance, possibly because studies were underpowered by small participant numbers. We highlight a need for larger trials with longer follow-up to clarify if apps deliver sustained clinically important effects. Clinical Trial: Prospero protocol CRD42018106195
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
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.