JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

At the workplace, healthcare workers face multiple challenges in maintaining healthy dietary behaviours, which is the major factor behind obesity. A hospital-wide Mass Health Screening exercise showed an increasing trend in the prevalence of obesity and median BMI from 2004 to 2019, as well as higher crude obesity rate among shift-workers.

Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of mobile application-based health-coaching and incentives in achieving weight-loss from better dietary choices among hospital nurses.

Methods:

We conducted a pilot study from June 2019 to March 2020, involving the use of a health-coaching application by 145 hospital nurses over 6 months. Weight and body-mass index (BMI) are self-reported and food-scores are calculated. Data among overweight nurses, shift-work nurses and incentive groups were analysed.

Results:

61 nurses were included in the final analysis. 38/61(62.3%) of the participants lost weight. Median percentage weight-loss is 1.2%(IQR 0,2.9)(P<0.001) and median decrease in BMI is 0.35(IQR -0.15,0,82)(P<0.001), but are not clinically significant. Median improvement in food-score is 0.4(IQR 0,0.8). There is no difference between the incentive and non-incentive groups. 49(34%) participants had ≥8 engaged weeks.

Conclusions:

The study demonstrated an association between the use of application-based health-coaching and the attainment of some weight-loss in nurses even without significant improvement in food-scores. Incentives may nudge on-boarding, but does not sustain engagement.