Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Sep 11, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 16, 2025 - Nov 4, 2025
Date Accepted: Nov 13, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effect of a Walking-Based Physical Activity Intervention on Health Indicators in University Students in Three Cities in Chile. Protocol For a Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Regular participation in some type of physical activity brings improvements in health indicators such as cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, and body composition. However, despite evidence indicating health benefits, one in four adults is physically inactive, a situation that also occurs in the university population. Walking is a physical activity modality that can be easily incorporated into daily activities, so performing a walking-based physical activity intervention could improve some health indicators.
Objective:
This protocol aims to analyze the impact of a walking-based physical activity intervention on health indicators in university students.
Methods:
An intervention group (n = 99) and a control group (n = 99) will be randomly selected. All participants will be assessed at the beginning and end of the intervention for indicators of health, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, and body composition. The intervention group will participate in a 14-week walking program with individualized daily goals, self-monitoring, personalized feedback, and weekly educational material, while the control group will only record their steps without receiving personalized goals or feedback.
Results:
The recruitment process will begin in March 2026. Initial assessments are scheduled to take place March 2-13, 2026. The intervention will be carried out from March 16, 2026, to May 22, 2026 (14 weeks). From May 25 to June 5, 2026, the final evaluations will be carried out. The final results of the study are expected to be published by October 2026.
Conclusions:
This protocol proposes a novel and feasible approach to overcome common barriers to physical activity in university students, with the potential for large-scale application in similar contexts. Clinical Trial: NCT06580769
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.