A RCT Evaluating a Chatbot in Increasing Physical Activity Among Older Adults

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Physical Inactivity

Treatments: Behavioral: Chatbot-delivered interventions tailored to one's stage of changes; Behavioral: Chatbot-delivered standard interventions

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06641492

20210531

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will compare the efficacy of a Chatbot-delivered stage of changes (SOC)-tailored online intervention (intervention group) versus a Chatbot-delivered non-SOC-tailored online intervention in increasing the prevalence of meeting WHO recommended physical activity level six months after completion of the intervention among inactive community-dwelling individuals aged ≥65 yeas. In the intervention group, the Chatbot will assess participants' physical activity level and SOC regarding PA and automatically deliver interventions tailor to their SOC every week for 12 weeks. In the control group, the Chatbot will not assess participants' SOC. It will assess participants' physical activity level and provides a standard intervention covering general information about physical activity for older adults, which is not tailoring to participants'SOC every week for 12 weeks. All participants will be followed up after completion of the interventions (T1) and six months after T1 (T2).

Enrollment: 278 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Aged ≥65 years,
• Having a Hong Kong ID,
• Chinese speaking,
• Not meet the WHO recommended level of MVPA
• Willing to be followed by telephone at 3 and 9 months,
• Having a smartphone
• Able to send and read text/voice message via smartphone.
• Willing to wear an accelerometer for a week at T0, T1 and T2.

Exclusion criteria

• Blindness or deafness,
• Having been diagnosed with major psychiatric illness (schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) or dementia,
• Score ≥1 in the Chinese version of the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q)
• Score ≤16 in the validated telephone version of the Cantonese Mini-mental State Examination (T-CMMSE)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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278 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The Chatbot will assess participants' physical activity level and stage of changes regarding physical activity and automatically deliver interventions tailor to their stage of changes every week for 12 weeks. The Chatbot will address questions related to physical activity raised by the participants.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Chatbot-delivered interventions tailored to one's stage of changes

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

The Chatbot will not assess participants' stage of changes. It will assess participants' physical activity level and provides a standard intervention covering general information about physical activity for older adults, which is not tailoring to participants' stage of changes every week for 12 weeks. The Chatbot will address questions related to physical activity raised by the participants.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Chatbot-delivered standard interventions