Testing Strategies to Encourage Weight Loss in an Employer Setting

University of Pennsylvania

Status: Completed

Conditions: Weight Loss

Treatments: Behavioral: Individual payout; Behavioral: No intervention; Behavioral: Group-based payout

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry; NIH

Identifiers

NCT01208350

RC2AG036592 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

812193

Details and patient eligibility

About

This is a 3-arm pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of two novel ways of structuring financial incentives to motivate and sustain long-term weight loss. The study will recruit eligible employees at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to participate in a 6-month weight loss program and an additional 3-month follow-up period. The primary outcome measure in this randomized control trial will be pounds of weight lost between baseline and 6 months. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether a novel financial incentive program delivered through a workplace can effectively encourage sustained weight loss among obese employees.

The study hypotheses are 1) mean weight loss will be greater in all the intervention groups compared to the control group by the end of the 24-week intervention period; and 2) individuals in the intervention groups will have a lower mean weight at the end of the 12-week follow-up period than individuals in the control group.

Enrollment: 105 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 70 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Aged 18 to 70 (inclusive)
• BMI between 30 and 40 (inclusive)

Exclusion criteria

• Inability to consent
• Illiteracy and/or inability to speak, read, and write English
• Participation in another research study
• Current treatment for drug or alcohol use
• Consumption of ≥ 5 alcoholic drinks per day
• Myocardial infarction or stroke within the past 6 months
• Current addiction to prescription medicines or street drugs
• Serious psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., severe major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia)
• Pregnant or currently breastfeeding
• Diabetic and using any medicine besides metformin to control blood glucose
• Metastatic cancer
• Unstable medical conditions that would likely prevent the subject from completing the study
• Previous diagnosis of an eating disorder
• History of unsafe weight loss behaviors such as binging or the use of laxatives

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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105 participants in 3 patient groups

1

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Individual payout

2

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Group-based payout

3

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: No intervention