Testing the Feasibility of the DASH Cloud Intervention Using Amazon Alexa

July 24, 2019 updated by: Duke University
The DASH diet is a proven behavioral strategy to reduce blood pressure, however, national adherence rates are poor. Using digital health tools may help to improve adoption of the DASH diet. Digital health approaches capitalize on the ubiquitous utilization of mobile technologies and have broad dissemination potential. There have been few efforts to test a DASH intervention via digital, and none using voice-activated technologies (e.g, Amazon Alexa). This proposal will enroll up to 20 participants to leverage a commercial diet tracking application, an existing intervention technology platform and the Amazon Echo Dot to test the feasibility of using DASH Cloud, a digital health intervention, with the Amazon Alexa personal assistant.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Digital health approaches are promising intervention channels for improving DASH diet adherence. Almost all Americans own a mobile phone and 97% of mobile phone owners use text messaging. Digital health approaches can capitalize on the ubiquity of mobile technologies and allow investigators to reach affected populations with highly personalized content at low cost. Despite this ubiquity, interventions using text messaging for hypertension self-management primarily rely on reminders for tracking and medication adherence without diet and physical activity behaviors or feedback. As such, they are less effective. Investigators will establish the feasibility of a novel digital health-based approach for disseminating the DASH diet using the Amazon Alexa personal assistant. The data from this pilot feasibility trial will set the foundation for a larger, fully-powered R01 grant to examine whether DASH Cloud using Alexa can improve health outcomes. The primary aim of this proposal is to test the feasibility of the DASH Cloud intervention using Amazon Alexa.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

26

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • North Carolina
      • Durham, North Carolina, United States, 27705
        • Duke University

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

21 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Over 21 years old;
  • BMI >18.5 kg/m2;
  • Current use of a smartphone with an updated operating system
  • Data plan
  • Willingness to be texted daily or weekly
  • Wifi network at home
  • An active email account
  • Spoken and written English fluency.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • CVD event in prior 6 months
  • Active malignancy
  • Active psychosis or recent psychiatric institutionalization
  • Current pregnancy or lactation
  • Current participation in a similar trial.

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: Other
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Interventional
DASH Cloud with Alexa
Participants will download and install the Alexa and Nutritionix application ("app") onto their smartphone and study staff will setup the study-specific account to send data to Duke's software system called Prompt. Participants will be instructed to invoke through voice their dietary intake daily for three months using the Nutritionix app through the Amazon Alexa personal assistant. DASH Cloud will access participant's dietary intake data through the Nutritionix application programing interface (API) for three months. Participants' data will automatically be uploaded from the Nutritionix app via the API that links the device with DASH Cloud. DASH Cloud will run an algorithm and send a daily or weekly feedback text message with a score reflecting DASH adherence for the prior days or week's food consumption using a previously validated scoring system.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Intervention feasibility
Time Frame: 3 months
Utilization of intervention components at 3 months as indicated by the system usability scale
3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Dori Steinberg, Ph.D, RD, Duke University
  • Principal Investigator: Gary Bennett, Ph.D, Duke University

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 (Actual)

July 23, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 17, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

December 17, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 27, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 5, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

March 7, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 25, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 24, 2019

Last Verified

July 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • D0298

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

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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