Schedule Intervention to Increase Sustainable Walking Activity in Midlife Working Adults

Using a Schedule Intervention to Increase Sustainable Walking Activity in Midlife

While people commonly understand that regular physical exercise conveys many health benefits, only 20% of U.S. adults take regular exercise and they have difficulty maintaining new healthy behaviors. The goal of this study is to use a planning intervention to help establish and maintain a daily step regimen in working midlife adults. The investigators will ask participants to plan when, where, and how to act on a daily walking goal in conjunction with a scheduling intervention to increase the chances that they will maintain this new regimen. The effectiveness of three different scheduling interventions will be compared.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Physical Activity
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: Accelerometer; Behavioral: Step goal; Behavioral: Consistent contexts; Behavioral: Inconsistent contexts

Detailed Description

While people commonly understand that regular physical exercise conveys many health benefits, only 20% of U.S. adults take regular exercise and they have difficulty maintaining new healthy behaviors. The goal of this study is to use a planning intervention to help establish and maintain a daily step regimen in working midlife adults. The investigators will ask participants to plan when, where, and how to act on a daily walking goal in conjunction with a scheduling intervention to increase the chances that they will maintain this new regimen. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: consistent schedule, inconsistent schedule, no schedule. All participants will be provided with an accelerometer to measure their daily activity and as a behavioral support for our intervention and they will be given a step goal. The goal given to each individual will be to increase immediately their daily steps to a level based on recommended guidelines (e.g., Hill, Wyatt, Reed, and Peters, 2003). The investigators will test which version of the scheduling intervention is most successful for increasing and maintaining step counts. It is predicted that participants in the consistent schedule condition will increase their step count more than those participants in the no schedule control condition, and that they will maintain this activity for a longer period after the intervention period is complete than those participants in the inconsistent schedule condition.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 149
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Waltham, Massachusetts, United States, 02453-2728
      • Brandeis University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 36 years to 61 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• currently working 3 or more days (or 24 hours or more) per week;
• physically minimally active (as determined using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)

Exclusion Criteria:

• a recent (within the past 6 months) cardiovascular event, or fall.
• anyone who already exercises regularly, 3 times a week or more for at least 30 minutes, will be excluded

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: No schedule control; This group will receive an accelerometer and daily step goal. They will monitor their steps over the 9 week duration of the study. They will also monitor their steps over the 9 week duration of the study. They will have the same level of contact as the other two conditions.	Device: Accelerometer; Participants use an accelerometer to monitor their steps activity; Behavioral: Step goal; Participants are given a daily step goal to aim for
Experimental: Consistent schedule condition; This group will receive an accelerometer and daily step goal. They will monitor their steps over the 9 week duration of the study. They will have the same level of contact as the other two conditions. In addition they will plan when, where, and how they will take steps in consistent contexts, i.e., that are very similar from day to day.	Device: Accelerometer; Participants use an accelerometer to monitor their steps activity; Behavioral: Step goal; Participants are given a daily step goal to aim for; Behavioral: Consistent contexts; Participants plan to take steps in contexts that are similar from day to day
Active Comparator: Inconsistent schedule condition; This group will receive an accelerometer and daily step goal. They will monitor their steps over the 9 week duration of the study. They will have the same level of contact as the other two conditions. In addition they will plan when, where, and how they will take steps in inconsistent contexts, i.e., that vary from day to day.	Device: Accelerometer; Participants use an accelerometer to monitor their steps activity; Behavioral: Step goal; Participants are given a daily step goal to aim for; Behavioral: Inconsistent contexts; Participants plan to take steps in contexts that vary from day to day

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Physical activity	Number of steps taken each day as measured on accelerometer	Daily for 9 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Measures of well being	Feelings of satisfaction with life, perceived stress, mood and sleep quality	Before and after intervention (5 weeks apart), and at followup (4 weeks later)
Physical activity self-efficacy and ease	Perceived ability and ease of being physically active	Weekly for 4 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Brandeis University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jane Ebert, PhD, Brandeis University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Hill JO, Wyatt HR, Reed GW, Peters JC. Obesity and the environment: where do we go from here? Science. 2003 Feb 7;299(5608):853-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1079857.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 13, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 24, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): July 24, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 25, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 1, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): September 5, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 25, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 13, 2025
• Last Verified: September 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: steps; goals
• Other Study ID Numbers: BrandeisU

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
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No