A Psychological-Behavioral Intervention to Improve Physical Activity in Midlife Adults With Low Baseline Physical Activity

Abstract

Background: Many midlife adults (aged 45-64 years) struggle to become physically active in the context of diminished psychological well-being and multiple concurrent stressors, despite the clear association of low physical activity with the development of chronic medical conditions.

Objectives: To assess the feasibility (rates of session completion) and acceptability (participant 0-10 ratings of weekly session ease and utility) of a novel 12-week, phone-delivered, midlife-adapted positive psychology-motivational interviewing (PP-MI) intervention to promote physical activity. Secondary aims were pre-post changes in accelerometer-measured physical activity and self-reported psychological and functional measures.

Methods: A single-arm proof-of-concept trial of the PP-MI intervention was conducted among 11 inactive midlife adults enrolled from the primary care practices of an urban academic medical center. Descriptive statistics were used to assess feasibility and acceptability outcomes, and mixed effects models were used to examine pre-post changes in psychological, functional, and physical activity outcomes from baseline to 12 weeks.

Results: The intervention exceeded a priori thresholds for feasibility and acceptability, with 80.3% session completion across all participants and mean session ratings of 8.3/10 (SD = 2.1). Participants also had medium effect size magnitude improvements in physical activity and psychological outcomes.

Conclusions: This remotely delivered, midlife-specific PP-MI intervention was feasible and well-accepted among inactive midlife adults, supporting next-step testing of this program in a randomized trial.

Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04745182.

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