Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 5, 2020
Date Accepted: Nov 11, 2020
Uptake of proactively offered online and telephone support services targeting multiple health risk behaviours among vocational education students in the Technical and Further Education setting: A Process Evaluation
ABSTRACT
Background:
A high proportion of vocational education students smoke tobacco, have inadequate nutrition (i.e. low fruit and vegetable intake), drink alcohol at the risky level or are physically inactive (SNAP). In the general population, uptake of effective online and telephone support services targeting these health risk behaviours is poor. The extent to which vocational education students will sign up for proactively offered online and telephone support services for multiple health risk behaviours is unknown.
Objective:
This study examined the acceptance of proactively offered online and telephone support services for SNAP behaviours, individually and in combination. The characteristics associated with acceptance of proactively offered online or telephone services for SNAP behaviours were also examined.
Methods:
Vocational educational students enrolled in a Technical and Further Education (TAFE) class in New South Wales, Australia that ran for 6 months or more were recruited to participate in a cluster randomised controlled trial, May 2018 to May 2019. As part of the intervention arm, participants who were not meeting the Australian health guidelines for each of the SNAP behaviours were provided electronic feedback and proactively offered online and telephone support services. Acceptance of the support was measured by whether participants signed up to the online and telephone support services they were offered.
Results:
A total of 551 vocational education students were recruited into the intervention arm. Acceptance of the proactive offer of either online or telephone support services was 14.5% for fruit and vegetable, 12.7% for physical activity, 6.8% for smoking and 5.5% for alcohol use. Acceptance of any online or telephone support service for at least two health behaviours was 5.8%. Participants who were employed (OR=0.10, 95% CI 0.01-0.72) and reported not being anxious (OR=0.11, 95% CI 0.02-0.71) had smaller odds of signing up for online or telephone support services for smoking, while participants who reported not being depressed had greater odds (OR=10.25, 95% CI 1.30-80.67). Participants who intended to change their physical activity in the next 30 days had greater odds (OR=4.01, 95% CI 1.33-12.07) of signing up to online or telephone support services for physical activity. Participants who were employed had smaller odds (OR=0.18, 95% CI 0.06-0.56) of signing up to support services for at least two behaviours.
Conclusions:
Although acceptance of proactively offered online and telephone support services is low, these rates appears to be higher than self-initiated use some of these services in the general population. If scaled up the population impact of the proactive offer of online and telephone services may produce beneficial health outcomes. Further research about barriers to the acceptance of proactively offered online and telephone support services among vocational education students is needed. Clinical Trial: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR): ACTRN12618000723280
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.