Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 22, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 25, 2019 - Sep 19, 2019
Date Accepted: May 14, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effectiveness of Wearable Trackers on Physical Activity in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
ABSTRACT
Background:
Wearable trackers are an increasingly popular tool among healthy adults to facilitate self-monitoring of physical activity.
Objective:
To systematically review the effectiveness of wearable trackers for improving physical activity and weight reduction among healthy adults.
Methods:
This review used the PRISMA methodology and reporting criteria. English-language randomized controlled trials with greater than 20 participants from MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus (2000-2017) were identified. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported an intervention group using wearable trackers; reporting either steps per day, total Moderate-Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA), activity; physical activity energy expenditure and weight reduction.
Results:
12 eligible studies with a total of 1693 participants met inclusion criteria. The mean age of the participants was 44.9 (95% CI 35.3-54.5) with 64.4% women. The mean intervention duration was 21.4 weeks (95% CI 6.1-36.7). The usage of wearable trackers was associated with increased physical activity (SMD 0.449, 95% CI 0.10-0.80, P = 0.01). In subgroup analyses, wearable trackers however, demonstrated no clear benefit with respect to physical activity or weight reduction.
Conclusions:
These data suggest that the use of wearable trackers in healthy adults may be associated with modest short-term increases in physical activity. Further data is required to determine if sustained benefit is associated with wearable tracker usage. Clinical Trial: CRD42019131868 https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=131868
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