Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jul 17, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 17, 2023 - Sep 11, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 9, 2024
(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Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial of a digital intervention to improve nutrition and hydration status in older adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital health tools provide the opportunity to support behaviour change and allow interventions to be scalable at a minimal cost. Apps that encourage dietary change are available and commonly used among younger populations however, few have been developed for the nutritional and technical requirements of older adults. Keep-on-Keep-up Nutrition (KOKU-Nut) is a free, tablet-based app that focuses on improving the dietary intake of older adults based on UK dietary guidelines. The intervention targets an important research area identified as a research priority reported by the James Lind Alliance priority setting partnership for malnutrition.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to assess the feasibility of using the digital health tool KOKU-Nut amongst community-dwelling older adults to inform a future randomised controlled trial. Secondary aims are to determine the acceptability, usability, preliminary effect sizes and safety of the study and the intervention (KOKU-Nut).
Methods:
This is a feasibility randomised controlled trial. We plan to recruit a total of 36 community-dwelling older adults using purposive sampling. Participants will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to either the intervention or the control group. The intervention group will be asked to engage with KOKU-Nut 3 times a week for 12 weeks. Participants in the control group will receive a leaflet promoting a healthy lifestyle. The study will assess feasibility of the intervention including adherence and ability to collect data on anthropometry, dietary intake, physical function and quality of life.
Results:
We anticipate data collection will commence in October 2023 with results ready for publication by September 2024.
Conclusions:
The study aligns with guidelines developed by the Medical Research Council for developing a complex intervention by employing qualitative and quantitative research to examine the barriers to intervention from the perspective of users and identify potential challenges around recruitment and retention . Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov (17372) approved on 12th July 2023
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.