Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Nov 16, 2017
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 17, 2017 - Mar 15, 2018
Date Accepted: Nov 24, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Acceptability and feasibility of using mobile technology to improve bone-related lifestyle risk factors in young women with low bone mineral density: a pilot study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Poor bone health in adolescent and young females is a growing concern. Given the widespread use of smartphones in this population, mobile health (mHealth) interventions may help improve lifestyle behaviours related to bone health in young women.
Objective:
To determine the effectiveness and feasibility of a mHealth intervention called “Tap4Bone†in improving lifestyle behaviours associated with the risk of osteoporosis in young women.
Methods:
The mHealth intervention comprised the use of mobile phone apps, short messaging service (SMS) and web emails to encourage lifestyle behaviour changes. The education group received osteoporosis prevention education leaflets. Changes in bone-health-related lifestyle behaviours namely, exercise, smoking and calcium intake were assessed. Users’ experiences and acceptance of the app were collected through focus group interviews.
Results:
A total of 35 were randomised to either the smartphone (intervention n =18) or education (control n = 17) group. All participants from the mHealth intervention group started taking calcium supplements after commencing the study, compared to fewer in the education control group (100.0% vs 44.4%, P < .001). Though there were trends towards improvement in sports activity and smoking behaviours in the mHealth intervention group, compared to the education group, these were not statistically significant. Approximately 70% of the sample said they would use a mobile phone app in future to improve their bone health.
Conclusions:
The Tap4Bone mHealth intervention was widely accepted by users and more effective than traditional education at encouraging calcium supplement intake to support bone health in young women.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
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.