Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 15, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 18, 2019 - Sep 12, 2019
Date Accepted: Feb 7, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Efficacy of a “Healthy Lifestyle Coaching Chatbot” Intervention with a Messenger Application for Office Workers: An Exploratory Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Lack of time to exercise is common in many office workers given their busy lives. Because of occupational restrictions and difficulty in taking time off, it is necessary to suggest effective ways for workers to exercise regularly. Sustaining lifestyle habits that increase non-exercise activity in daily life can solve the issue regarding lack of exercise time. “Healthy Lifestyle Coaching Chatbot” as a messenger application based on habit-formation model can be used as a tool to provide a health behavior intervention that emphasizes the importance of sustainability and involvement.
Objective:
This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the “Healthy Lifestyle Coaching Chatbot” fully automated intervention presented via a messenger application aimed at stair-climbing habit formation for office workers.
Methods:
From 18th to 28th, January, 2018, total of 106 people participated in the trial through online recruitment. Participants were randomly assigned into the intervention group (N=57) and the control group (N=49). The intervention group received cues and intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for the entire 12 weeks. However, the control group did not receive intrinsic rewards for the first 4 weeks and only received all rewards as that in the intervention group from the 5th to 12th week. Self-report habit index (SRHI) of all participants was evaluated every week, and the level of physical activity was measured at the beginning and end of the trial. SPSS v.21 was used for statistical analysis.
Results:
After 4 weeks of intervention, the SRHIs were 13.54 ± 14.99 in the intervention group and 6.42 ± 9.42 in the control group, indicating a significant difference between the groups (P=0.035). When all rewards were given to both groups from the 5th to 12th week, SRHIs of the intervention and control groups were comparable at 12.08 ± 10.87 and 15.88 ± 13.29, respectively (P =0.211). However, the level of physical activity showed significant difference between the groups after 12 weeks of intervention (P = 0.045).
Conclusions:
This study provides evidence that intrinsic rewards are important to enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of an intervention. The “Healthy Lifestyle Coaching Chatbot” program can be a cost-effective method for healthy habit formation. Clinical Trial: The research plan was reviewed by the Institutional Review Board of Seoul National University and received approval (IRB No. 1706/003-026), and this clinical trial was registered in the Clinical Research Information Service (https://cris.nih.go.kr, registration number: KCT0004009).
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Copyright
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