Physical Activity Intervention Among College Students

Incorporating Wearable Technology Into Physical Activity Instructional Program: A Cluster Randomized Trial in University Settings

This project was to examine the effects of incorporating modern wearable technology into the credit-based Physical Activity Instructional Program for promoting habitual levels of physical activity among college students.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Physical Activity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Activity tracker

Detailed Description

This project was a cluster randomized trial examining the effects of utilizing a wearable activity tracker in a credit-based Physical Activity Instructional Program on promoting habitual levels of physical activity (PA) in college students.

The project was conducted in a large public university located in the mid-south region of the US. The university offers more than one hundred 1-credit hour PAIPs per academic semester. Considering the pilot nature of the study, the target PAIPs was limited to those meeting the following inclusion criteria: 1) PAIP with a size of 30 students that generally show an approximately equal gender distribution; and 2) PAIP that delivers the principles and practice of individually tailored habitual activity plans. The investigators randomly selected 14 eligible PAIPs and assigned them into intervention (k=7) and control (k=7) groups. The outcome measures of interests were the changes in objectively and subjectively measured physical activity over an academic semester.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 187
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• healthy college students who were enrolled in 1-credit physical activity instruction programs.

Exclusion Criteria:

• did not wish to participate;
• have currently used their own wearable activity tracker;
• indicated any major physical, psychiatric, or cardiovascular-related problems diagnosed by a physician.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Activity tracker group; Participants in intervention arm were provided with a small and lightweight activity tracker, Misfit Flash (Misfit Wearables Co., Burlingame, CA), that can be worn with a clasp or watch band. A handout detailing the step-by-step instructions for utilizing the activity tracker with Misfit App on their smartphone was provided. There was no intervention component mandated in the curriculum of intervention PAIP courses; rather, participants were continuously encouraged by the instructors to track their activity levels and use all the features in Misfit App on a daily basis as they learned health benefits of PA and as to how to develop individualized, life-long PA plan during the course of semester.	Behavioral: Activity tracker; Misfit Flash (Misfit Wearables Co., Burlingame, CA) activity tracker
No Intervention: Control group; Participants in control arm did not receive any additional instructions other than the scheduled class activities based on the standardized core-curriculum of PAIP

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change from baseline in objectively measured physical activity to 15 weeks	Physical activity was objectively measured using an ActiGraph Actitrainer (ActiGraph LLC, Pensacola, FL, USA) accelerometer.	baseline and 15 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change from baseline in subjectively measured physical activity	Physical activity was subjectively measured using International Physical Activity Questionnaire.	baseline and 15 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Texas Tech University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Youngdeok Kim, PhD, Texas Tech University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 6, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 31, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): December 31, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 9, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 17, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): February 23, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 23, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 17, 2017
• Last Verified: February 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: behavior change; activity tracker
• Other Study ID Numbers: 505314

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No