Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 13, 2020
Date Accepted: Feb 2, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Improving healthy habits in adolescents: an intervention based on the influence of the social network
ABSTRACT
Background:
Technology has provided a new way of life for the adolescent population. Indeed, strategies aimed at improving health-related behaviours through digital platforms can offer promising results. On the other hand, since it has been shown that peers are capable of modifying behaviours related to food and physical exercise, it is interesting to study whether digital interventions based on peer influence are capable of improving the weight status of adolescents.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of an eHealth application in an adolescent population, in terms of the adequacy of the age and sex adapted percentile. It also studies the social relationships of pre- and post-intervention adolescents, identifying the leaders and relating them to food, physical exercise and the use of the application.
Methods:
The percentile was calculated in accordance with the references of the World Health Organization, feeding by means of the KIDMED test and physical exercise with the PAQ-A. The variables related to social networks were analyzed using the Social Network Analysis methodology. In this respect, mutual friendship was considered and the Degree was calculated as an indicative parameter of centrality.
Results:
The sample of the intervention group (IG) was 210 individuals, that of the control group (CG), 91. Se obtuvo una tasa de participación del 60,08%. Tras comprobar la homogeneidad entre el GI y el GC, in the IG, both individuals with a percentile > 50 and those with a percentile < 50 were able to adjust the percentile to the 50th percentile (p50) (>50: p-value: 0.000; <50: p-value: 0.038). The diet was also improved (p-value: 0.000) en el GI en comparación con el GC. As regards the leadership position, being a leader and doing physical activity are related (p-value: 0.002), as well as being a leader and using the application in all related variables.
Conclusions:
The eHealth application was able to modify behaviours related to p50 compliance and moderate those related to food and physical exercise. Digital interventions in the adolescent population, based on the improvement in behaviours related to healthy habits and optimizing the social network, can offer promising results that help in the fight against obesity.
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.