Smartphone-based Health Behaviour Intervention for Adolescents

NCT05912439 | Unknown

• 1 other identifier: UI-2023-mHealth
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 670
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Despite most adolescents having access to smartphones, few of them seem to use mobile health (mHealth) applications for health improvement, highlighting the apparent lack of interest in mHealth applications among adolescents. Adolescent mHealth interventions have been burdened with high attrition rates, where attrition is often measured at two time points. Research on these interventions among adolescents have frequently lacked detailed time related attrition data alongside analysis of attrition reasons through usage. The objective is to obtain daily attrition rates among adolescents in an mHealth intervention called SidekickHealth and gain a deeper understanding of attrition patterns and reasons along with the function of motivational support, such as altruistic rewards, through analysis of application usage data.

Conditions

Healthy Adolescents in School-based Population

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Application usage

  Time stamp in days, minutes, and seconds off each health activity completed within the mobile application

  From admission to discharge, up to 6 weeks.

Secondary Outcomes (3)

• Anxiety and depression symptoms

  From admission to discharge, up to 6 weeks.

• General self-effifcacy

  From admission to discharge, up to 6 weeks.

• Sleeping habits

  From admission to discharge, up to 6 weeks.

Study Arms (3)

Control

NO INTERVENTION

Measures for participants in control group are obtained at baseline and 42 days later. The control group receives no further contact, access to the mHealth application or information until study-end questionnaire measures are provided.

Treatment-As-Usual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

For participants in Treatment-As-Usual (TAU) group measures are obtained at baseline and 42 days later. Participants receive an approximately 10 minutes long introduction regarding study specifications and the mHealth application. Active participation in TAU group is defined as downloading the Sidekick app and completing at least 3 health exercises within it. Time of exercise is defined as the timestamp on completion of exercise within any of the three types of exercise categories (physical activity, nutrition and mental health) of the app. Exercise frequency refers to how often a given exercise was completed by a participant in TAU group. Time of attrition is defined as the time stamp of last completing health exercise within the Sidekick throughout intervention period. Participants in TAU group use the application individually throughout trial period without any motivational support.

Behavioral: SidekickHealth

Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

For participants in intervention group measures are obtained at baseline and 42 days later. Participants receive an approximately 10 minutes long introduction regarding study specifications and the mHealth application. Active participation in intervention group is defined as downloading the Sidekick app and completing at least 3 health exercises within it. Time of exercise is defined as the timestamp on completion of exercise within any of the three types of exercise categories (physical activity, nutrition and mental health) of the app. Exercise frequency refers to how often a given exercise was completed by a participant in TAU group. Time of attrition is defined as the time stamp of last completing health exercise within the Sidekick throughout intervention period. Participants in intervention group receive weekly motivational support in form of individual and group feedback on usage, participation in friendly health task competitions and weekly altruistic rewards for usage.

Behavioral: SidekickHealth

Interventions

SidekickHealth BEHAVIORAL

Usage of mobile application called SidekickHealth.

Also known as: SidekickHealth mHealth application

Intervention; Treatment-As-Usual

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 13 Years - 16 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• All children attending the oldest 3 classes in three participating public elementary schools in Iceland are eligible participants. All children in public schools in the municipality are equipped with an iPad from 10 years of age.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Iceland: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Iceland

Reykjavik, Reykjavik, 101, Iceland

Location

Related Publications (36)

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• Egilsson E, Bjarnason R, Njardvik U. Usage and Daily Attrition of a Smartphone-Based Health Behavior Intervention: Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2023 Jun 26;11:e45414. doi: 10.2196/45414.

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Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Masking Details: Masking (blinding) procedures is not done after initial randomisation on group (school) level, since participants are aware of the intervention design, that is whether or not they use a mHealth application
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: The study is a randomised controlled study. Group randomisation is used to distinguish three participating schools into control, treatment-as-usual (TAU) and intervention groups. Measures are obtained at baseline and 42 days later. Participants in both the TAU group and the intervention group receive an approximately 10 minutes long introduction regarding the study specifications and the application. The control group receive no further contact, access to the application or information until study-end questionnaire measures. Participants in the intervention group are randomly assigned to teams consisting of 8 individuals that collectively and individually compete in point collection through completion of in-app health tasks. Participation in the TAU group and intervention group is defined as downloading the Sidekick app and completing at least 3 health exercises within it.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: May 30, 2023
• First Posted: June 22, 2023
• Study Start: August 15, 2017
• Primary Completion: May 1, 2023
• Study Completion: December 1, 2023
• Last Updated: June 22, 2023

Record last verified: 2023-05

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

IC (1)