Enhancing Adherence by Building Online Communities

January 27, 2009 updated by: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Enhancing Adherence to an Internet-Mediated Walking Program by Building Online Communities

The purpose of this study is to determine whether online peer support will increase adherence to an internet-based pedometer walking program.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Stepping Up to Health with eCommunities is a study that takes what we already know about motivating sedentary, chronically ill people to walk, and begins to explore what it takes to keep people motivated to exercise over time: the ability to self-monitor behavior with accurate ecological momentary assessments.

We have theorized that peer support, monitoring and competition are ways in which people can stay motivated to meet their walking goals; thus, we have built into this intervention online forums for participants to communicate with each other and garner support, as well as a pilot one-to-many competitive game based on the percent of an individual's goal met.

Our research question is whether online community participation can increase adherence to an Internet-mediated walking program, which consists of an uploading pedometer, and going to a website to receive graphical and textual feedback as to whether participants are meeting gradually increasing walking goals. Three hundred participants will spend four months in this randomized, controlled trial to compare the intervention alone to the intervention plus online community support.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

324

Phase

  • Phase 2
  • Phase 1

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Must have one or more of the following: Coronary artery disease (CAD); BMI 25 or higher; Type 2 diabetes
  • Must be sedentary, defined by less than 150 minutes of self-reported activity per week
  • Must be 18 or older
  • Must have access to a computer with an Internet connection, a USB port, and Windows 2000 (latest service pack), XP or Vista
  • Must be a regular email user (checking weekly)
  • Must be able to communicate in English

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Pregnant
  • Cannot walk a block (self-report)
  • Not competent to sign consent
  • Unable to obtain medical clearance from a treating physician (primary care, cardiologist, endocrinologist)
  • Type 1 diabetes

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: 1
Stepping Up to Health only
Behavioral: Stepping Up to Health
Internet-mediated walking program with pedometers, goal-setting and tailored messaging
Experimental: 2
Stepping up to Health PLUS online message boards to talk with other participants
Behavioral: Stepping Up to Health
Internet-mediated walking program with pedometers, goal-setting and tailored messaging

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Total steps
Time Frame: last 30 days of intervention
last 30 days of intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
dropout rate
Time Frame: Four months
Four months
days and hours pedometer worn
Time Frame: four months
four months
login frequency
Time Frame: four months
four months
upload frequency
Time Frame: four months
four months
content of posts (qualitative)
Time Frame: four months
four months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Caroline R Richardson, MD, University of Michigan Health System Dept. of Family Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2008

Primary Completion (Actual)

October 1, 2008

Study Completion (Actual)

January 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 1, 2008

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 5, 2008

First Posted (Estimate)

August 6, 2008

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

January 29, 2009

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 27, 2009

Last Verified

January 1, 2009

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 57408

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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