Virtual Trainer System (3rd Version) for Physical Activity Promotion in Middle-aged Hong Kong Adults
Condition: Sedentary Lifestyle
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Practicing a habitual physical activity is important for health. A Virtual Trainer (VT)
      online system was developed in 2006 (1st version) and improved in 2010 (2nd version) for
      encouraging an active lifestyle. This project intends to further improve the VT (3rd version)
      which incorporates more effective psychological and e-health theories, and disseminate it to
      Hong Kong middle-aged adults.
    

Detailed description: 
      Hong Kong is a highly urbanized city that many people work long hours daily and over the
      week, especially for those middle-aged adults. The limited time and lack of professional
      exercise instruction are always the barriers for them to participate in physical activity
      (PA). With the advances in information technology (IT), the knowledge of PA can be rapidly
      disseminated through the Internet and smartphone. We design an IT- instruction based
      lifestyle intervention program, with the purpose to improve PA level and health status in a
      sample of middle-aged Hong Kong adults. A two-arm parallel individual level randomized
      controlled trial (RCT) named "Follow Your Virtual Trainer (FYVT)" will be conducted among 200
      healthy and sedentary Chinese adults aged from 40 to 65 years. The participants will be
      randomly allocated into intervention group or control group. Those in intervention group will
      under the instruction of a web-based computer software termed "Virtual Trainer", which
      interact with their smartphone apps, to conduct a 3-month self-planned PA training program. A
      serious of online video seminars with healthy lifestyle themes will be released to the
      participants biweekly among 3 months. After that, 6 months observation will be followed.
      Those in control group will only receive a written advice of standard PA recommendation, and
      the textual content of the seminars. The assessments will be implemented at baseline, 3, 6,
      and 9 month. Primary outcome is PA measured by accelerometer and International Physical
      Activity Questionnaire; the second outcomes include cardio-respiratory fitness, resting
      energy expenditure, anthropometrics, body composition, blood pressure, health-related quality
      of life, sleep quality and quantity, fatigue, behavior mediators, and maintenance of PA.
    

Intervention name(s): Follow Your Virtual Trainer (FYVT) program; Daily PA recommendation & healthy lifestyle suggestions
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Other
Intervention description(s): Participants in intervention group will under the instruction of a web-based computer software termed "Virtual Trainer", which interact with their smartphone apps, to conduct a 3-month self-planned PA training program. A serious of online video seminars related to healthy lifestyle advice will be released to the participants among 3 months. After that, 6 months observation will be followed.; A written advice of daily PA recommendation, and the textual content of the healthy lifestyle seminars will be provided to the participants.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: From 1,300 recruitment questionnaires, 261 met inclusion criteria, and 119 were randomly assigned into either n=53 in group 1 (VT3 intervention), 38 in group 2 (VT2 intervention), or 28 control (no-VT).
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Physical activity; Information technology; Middle-aged; Health promotion