Clinical trial NCT03272438: Schedule Intervention to Increase Sustainable Walking Activity in Midlife Working Adults
Official title: Using a Schedule Intervention to Increase Sustainable Walking Activity in Midlife
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Physical Activity
Keywords: steps
goals
Lead sponsor: Brandeis University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2017-09-05
Enrollment: 149
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 40
Maximum age (years): 65
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three between-subjects conditions: consistent schedule, inconsistent schedule, no schedule. The study is a longitudinal study over 9 weeks, including a baseline week, a 4-week intervention and a follow-up assessment 4 weeks after the intervention.
Primary purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Brief summary: While people commonly understand that regular physical exercise conveys many health benefits, only 20% of U.S. adults take regular exercise and they have difficulty maintaining new healthy behaviors. The goal of this study is to use a planning intervention to help establish and maintain a daily step regimen in working midlife adults. The investigators will ask participants to plan when, where, and how to act on a daily walking goal in conjunction with a scheduling intervention to increase the chances that they will maintain this new regimen. The effectiveness of three different scheduling interventions will be compared.

Detailed description: While people commonly understand that regular physical exercise conveys many health benefits, only 20% of U.S. adults take regular exercise and they have difficulty maintaining new healthy behaviors. The goal of this study is to use a planning intervention to help establish and maintain a daily step regimen in working midlife adults. The investigators will ask participants to plan when, where, and how to act on a daily walking goal in conjunction with a scheduling intervention to increase the chances that they will maintain this new regimen. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: consistent schedule, inconsistent schedule, no schedule. All participants will be provided with an accelerometer to measure their daily activity and as a behavioral support for our intervention and they will be given a step goal. The goal given to each individual will be to increase immediately their daily steps to a level based on recommended guidelines (e.g., Hill, Wyatt, Reed, and Peters, 2003). The investigators will test which version of the scheduling intervention is most successful for increasing and maintaining step counts. It is predicted that participants in the consistent schedule condition will increase their step count more than those participants in the no schedule control condition, and that they will maintain this activity for a longer period after the intervention period is complete than those participants in the inconsistent schedule condition.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* currently working 3 or more days (or 24 hours or more) per week;
* physically minimally active (as determined using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)

Exclusion Criteria:

* a recent (within the past 6 months) cardiovascular event, or fall.
* anyone who already exercises regularly, 3 times a week or more for at least 30 minutes, will be excluded

Primary outcomes:
measure: Physical activity
timeFrame: Daily for 9 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Measures of well being
timeFrame: Before and after intervention (5 weeks apart), and at followup (4 weeks later)
measure: Physical activity self-efficacy and ease
timeFrame: Weekly for 4 weeks
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Waltham
country: United States
facility: Brandeis University
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: Brandeis University
name: Jane Ebert, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Hill JO, Wyatt HR, Reed GW, Peters JC. Obesity and the environment: where do we go from here? Science. 2003 Feb 7;299(5608):853-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1079857.