Acceptability and Usability of a Theory-Driven Intervention via Email to Promote Physical Activity in Women Who Are Overweight or Obese: Substudy Within a Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Insufficient physical activity (PA) and excess weight increase illness risk for women. Face-to-face interventions can increase PA levels; however, they are often inaccessible. With growing interest in digital interventions, a Self-Determination Theory (SDT)-driven intervention was developed and delivered via email to promote PA in women who were insufficiently active and overweight or obese. OBJECTIVE: This substudy explores users' perspectives about the acceptability and usability of the intervention, which was coupled with a wearable activity monitor and PA recommendations. METHODS: who were not meeting the Canadian PA guidelines were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 arms (arm 1: n=15, 32%; arm 2: n=16, 34%; arm 3: n=16, 34%). This substudy focused on the 15 participants allocated to the main intervention arm. Participants received an automated intervention consisting of (1) 6 weekly emails, (2) a Polar Electro Inc A300 activity monitor (with access to the Polar Flow website and companion smartphone app), and (3) a copy of the Canadian PA guidelines for adults. Emails were developed using SDT and designed to enhance autonomous motivation by fostering the psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Well-established motivational and behavior change techniques were embedded in the emails to promote needs satisfaction. After the intervention (ie, 7 weeks after randomization), participants were invited to complete a web-based acceptability and usability survey containing open-ended and closed-ended questions; responses were analyzed using descriptive and content analyses, respectively. RESULTS: ) who received the main intervention and completed the postintervention survey. Open-ended responses indicated that participants were generally satisfied with the intervention and appreciated that emails prompted self-reflection, kept them on track and accountable, provided informational support, and were nonpressuring. Furthermore, they suggested that the monitor was "enjoyable" and "helpful"; quantitative data corroborated this, as 71% (10/14) said that the monitor was "very valuable/absolutely valuable," 71% (10/14) would "very probably/definitely" still use one, and 86% (12/14) wore it for ≥5 days per week for ≥8 hours per day and checked it "occasionally/frequently/very frequently." Potential threats to acceptability included "long" and "text-heavy" emails; lack of personal contact; and cumbersome, unaesthetic monitors. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that this SDT-driven, email-delivered intervention may be an acceptable low-contact approach to promote PA in women who are overweight or obese and insufficiently active; however, improvements are warranted and studies ascertaining its effectiveness are needed. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03601663; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03601663. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.1177/20552076221093134.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.019 | 0.021 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".