Digital Wellness Nurse - FIT Families: Virtual Family Intervention for Adolescent Obesity (DWN-FIT)

Machine and Human Interaction

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Obese Children and Adolescents

Treatments: Behavioral: Digital Wellness Nurse - FIT Families

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Industry; NIH

Identifiers

NCT07087808

1R41MD018558-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

WCG#20251040

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of the research is to evaluate the digital wellness nurse (DWN) app to find out if it is helpful in delivering the FIT Families intervention. The study is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Full description

The focus of the DWN for this study, in collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), is to evaluate its feasibility in delivering key components of FIT Families (HL155793), a multicomponent behavioral intervention designed to treat 12-to-17-year-old African American (AA) adolescents with obesity (AAAO).

The study aims to expand the FIT Families intervention through a digital adaptation that utilizes mobile technology and automation to increase access and adherence. Specifically, the DWN platform will assist AAAOs and their primary caregivers (participants) in understanding, tracking, and completing intervention components; delivering educational content when needed; and collecting information from external sources such as wearables. An analysis of their progression will provide the participants' incentives for adhering to intervention components, for example increasing their participation in self-monitoring (SM) and physical activity (PA). The DWN enables social support (SS) by allowing additional family members or friends to offer messages of encouragement to the participants throughout the treatment. Using our web-based dashboard, community health workers (CHWs) will monitor the progress of their families, meeting with them weekly via video conference within the DWN mobile application.

DWN-FIT will evaluate the feasibility of a digital intervention to expand access and facilitate adherence to family-oriented, evidence-based treatment for AAAOs and their caregivers. Additionally, the realization of DWN-FIT will enable future research and development of evidence-based digital interventions targeting AAAOs. Successful outcomes of the proposed work will provide the evidence needed to support a larger, more comprehensive randomized clinical trial and commercialization of DWN (Phase II).

Enrollment: 32 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 17 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Adolescents (ages 12-17)
2. Adolescent BMI ≥ 90th percentile for age and gender
3. Primary caregiver either overweight (BMI 25.0 to 29.9) or obese (BMI ≥ 30) and willing to participate in treatment
4. Adolescent residing primarily with the primary caregiver in a rural community (RUCA Codes 4-10)
5. Both caregiver and adolescent must have (separate) Android or Apple (iOS) smartphone with mobile internet connection
6. Adolescent and caregiver are English proficient
7. Supporters must be 18 years of age or older

Exclusion criteria

• Exclusion criteria for youth only:

  1. Obesity secondary to medication use for another medical condition (e.g., steroids, antipsychotics)
  2. Obesity secondary to a chronic condition (e.g., Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, Cushing's syndrome)

Exclusion criteria that apply to both adolescents and caregivers:

1. Pregnancy (e.g., caregivers and youth will be asked each week if they expect if they are pregnant)
2. Mental/emotional disorder (e.g., schizophrenia or other psychosis), suicidal, or homicidal
3. Serious cognitive impairment (e.g., inability to complete questionnaires)
4. Medical condition where weight loss is contraindicated
5. Receiving or planned to receive other obesity treatments (e.g., pharmacologic treatment, bariatric surgery) within the next 6 months

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

32 participants in 2 patient groups

Social Support

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the social support arm will receive the same treatment as the control group, including video chatting with health coach, physical activity monitoring, and compensation via contingency management. In addition to these elements, these participants will also assign a social support person to provide them encouragement and accountability.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Digital Wellness Nurse - FIT Families

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

The Control arm features the standard digital FIT Families treatment, including video chat with health coach, physical activity, nutrition monitoring, and compensation through contigency management.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Digital Wellness Nurse - FIT Families