commitfit app to facilitate health behavior change in clinic adolescents

Conditions: Overweight Adolescents

Summary: we conducted a 3-month rct with 30 adolescents (aged 13-15 years) and their caregivers to evaluate the effectiveness of the novel mhealth app "commitfit", which uses gamification to motivate users to log and achieve health behavior goals. the rct had three arms: (1) commitfit only users, (2) commitfit$, adolescents were paid $0.05 for each point they earned, and (3) control. software analytics, surveys, bmi, and blood pressure were evaluated at baseline, 3 months, and 4 months.

we will recruit 30 adolescents and 30 caregivers to beta test commitfit. the study will be limited to one participating adolescent and one of their caregivers. there will be three groups in the study: 1) control 2) commitfit and 3) commitfit$. all participants will be required to complete a screening survey at the beginning of the study. the eligible participants will be contacted via email/ phone and will give their consent after taking the screening survey, and then they will take the baseline demographic survey for their adolescents and themselves. after the participants in the commitfit and commitfit$ groups download the app, they will be shown how to pick a health behavior (fruits/vegetables, water, decreased sugary beverages, physical activity, sleep) and then set a goal and a time period to work on their goal. they will receive a daily reminder to log their health behaviors. at the end of their goal period, they will be rewarded with points for logging behaviors and successfully achieving their goals. points will be used to rank the participant on the leaderboard using the username that they registered with. users can also use points to unlock gear for their avatar in the gear store. control group participants will receive email handouts with healthy lifestyle tips which they could use if they choose to. they will not use the commitfit app. all participants will be compensated through egift cards. software analytics will be utilized to evaluate how the app was used (frequency of goals set and behaviors logged), duration of use, etc., to evaluate app features and gamification techniques. we will evaluate changes in health behaviors using online surveys, and measure health metrics (height and weight which will be used to calculate body mass index (bmi), and blood pressure) in the clinic. we will have the adolescents take 7 surveys-gad7, pedql, reasons why i think about being healthy, behavior economics survey, gamification survey, commitfit app survey, and commercialization survey (commitfit and commitfit$ only for use surveys). similarly, we will have the caregivers take 4 surveys gamification survey, commitfit app survey, behavior economics survey, and commercialization survey for caregiver subject. in the control group, adolescents will only take 4 surveys- gad7, pedql, reasons why i think about being healthy, and behavior economics survey. caregivers in the control group will take only the behavioral economic survey. all participants will take the surveys at the beginning of the study, after end of 3rd month, and at the end of the 4th month (follow-up visit). weight, height and blood pressure from all adolescents and their caregivers will also be collected at the clinical site. all participants completed the 5-10 minute paper exit survey and interview at their final 4-month clinic visit.

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: speak english fluently, read at the 6th grade level or higher, and be proficient with smart phone app use to participate. caregivers much bet at least 18 years or older. no baseline weight criteria. - exclusion criteria: severe mental health disorders (other than mild or controlled anxiety and/or depression), intellectual disabilities, or eating disorders via a screening survey -

Keywords: mhealth obesity adolescent parent caregiver financial incentives behavior modification user engagement