Effectiveness of Activity Trackers to Reduce Sedentary Behaviour in Sedentary Adults
Condition: Sedentary Lifestyle
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This study evaluates the effectiveness of consumer wearable activity trackers to reduce
      sedentary behaviour and the impact on cardiometabolic health.
    

Detailed description: 
      Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic
      respiratory diseases and diabetes, are an important public health concern worldwide. Physical
      inactivity is one of the major contributing factors which is highly correlated with the
      prevalence of NCDs. On the other hand, it is well known that increased physical activity has
      significant health benefits and is associated with the prevention and delayed onset of many
      NCDs. Given the important role of physical activity in the prevention and management of NCDs
      it is thus important to promote physical activity. Hence, to date a multitude of physical
      activity recommendations and many supervised training interventions and rehabilitation
      programs are available to encourage physical activity in the global population. Despite this,
      a recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that 23% of the adult and
      80% of the adolescent population remains physically inactive. Here, long-term compliance to
      adequate physical activity and a healthy life style appears to be one of the main barriers
      explaining this discrepancy. Consequently, any strategy that improves long term adherence to
      adequate daily physical activity and a healthy life style, especially in an NCD population,
      is worthwhile investigating. In this respect and following the recent use of
      accelerometer-based remote monitoring of physical activity in chronic disease patients,
      consumer wearable activity trackers may be such a strategy. So far, consumer wearable
      activity trackers have been investigated mainly in the sports community. Here CWATs are used
      for self-monitoring and providing continuous sport performance and health related information
      to athletes and coaches. Interestingly, the self-management, motivational and goal setting
      properties of these commercially available devices may also help patients with NCDs to engage
      in long-term physical activity under free-living conditions in a home-based setting. Despite
      the widespread use of these wearables their feasibility and effectiveness on physical
      activity (compliance) and generic health-related outcomes, including weight, body mass index
      (BMI), systemic blood pressure and glycemic index, especially in patients with NCDs is not
      fully clear.

      Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of CWATs to promote
      physical activity levels and cardiometabolic health in sedentary adults. A better
      understanding to what extent CWATs can actually improve physical activity (compliance) and
      health outcomes is important to increase the effectiveness and quality of health care in
      chronic disease populations.
    

Intervention name(s): CWAT intervention; CWAT + motivation intervention group
Intervention type(s): Device; Device
Intervention description(s): Participant in the intervention group will wear an activity tracker for 12 weeks.; Participant in the intervention group will wear an activity tracker for 12 weeks and are also motivated by the researcher via a lifestyle data platform.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Supportive Care