Evaluation of a 5-a-day Fruit and Vegetable Mobile Phone Application

Bournemouth University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Nutritional Status; Nutrition Assessment

Treatments: Behavioral: 5-a-day fruit and vegetable mobile phone application

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02779491

REC10186

Details and patient eligibility

About

This is a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of a novel fruit and vegetable mobile phone application on fruit and vegetable intakes, knowledge and attitudes.

Full description

The 5-a-day fruit and vegetable (FV) message from the WHO recommends consumption of five 80g portions of different FV per day for health reasons. Recent research suggests that the details of the message are poorly understood by the population as a whole, by low consumers of FV and by those in demographic groups of traditional low FV consumption, and that this poor knowledge impacts on implementation of the message to result in low FV intakes. To aid implementation of the recommendations, investigators have developed a 5-a-day FV mobile phone application (app) prototype. The basic prototype app will provide information on the 5-a-day message, allow users to input consumption, and provides consumers with accurate knowledge of their adherence to the recommendations. This study will investigate the use and impact of the prototype app on FV intakes over a two or four week period. For significant impacts on health, sustained user engagement and use will be required. Up to 100 participants will be randomised to either receive or not receive the app, and will be asked to use the app for the following two or four weeks. FV intake will be assessed at baseline, 2 weeks, 4 weeks. Measures of app use will also be taken at these time points. Measures of FV knowledge will also be measured at these time points. Measures of FV attitudes were initially planned but not undertaken to reduce demand characteristics for participants. The investigators anticipate that changes in intakes will be mediated by changes in knowledge and attitudes.

Enrollment: 94 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• able to provide informed consent
• speaks English, owns an android mobile telephone
• able and willing to use phone and complete all measures

Exclusion criteria

• none

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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94 participants in 4 patient groups

Intervention for two weeks

Experimental group

Description:

Receipt of the mobile phone application for two weeks

Treatment:

Behavioral: 5-a-day fruit and vegetable mobile phone application

Control for two weeks

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual habitual activity - no receipt of mobile phone application for two weeks

Intervention for four weeks

Experimental group

Description:

Receipt of the mobile phone application for four weeks

Treatment:

Behavioral: 5-a-day fruit and vegetable mobile phone application

Control for four weeks

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual habitual activity - no receipt of mobile phone application for two weeks