The StepSmart Project: A Pedometer Based Phased Intervention to Encourage Physical Activity in Schools

Queen's University Belfast

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 1

Conditions: Physical Activity; Incentives; Health Behavior; Competitive Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: The StepSmart Challenge

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02455986

StepSmart

Details and patient eligibility

About

A school based pedometer competition among Year 9 pupils (12 - 14 years old) to promote physical activity (PA).

Full description

The intervention is separated into three main phases.

Phase One: A 10-week school competition using pedometers and a range of non-financial incentives e.g. t-shirts, pens, badges etc. (April - June 2015).

Phase Two: End of school competition but participants will still keep the pedometers. We will set them various challenges over the summer to keep active (July - Oct 2015).

Phase Three: Removal of all extrinsically motivation factors. Focus on PA maintenance.

Enrollment: 240 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 14 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• aged 12-14 years
• enrolled in participating school

Exclusion Criteria

• Unable to give informed consent
• Presence of an underlying medical conditions
• Already enrolled in a physical activity intervention

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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240 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention group includes 150 participants aged 12-14 across three schools. Each participant has been given a Fitbit Zip pedometer to wear for a six month period and enrolled on the StepSmart challenge. Participants within the intervention group will take part in two competitions during this period. 1. School and team based competition. 27/05/15 - 22/06/15 (8 weeks) 2. Individually focused competition. 22/06/15 - 26/10/15 (18 weeks) Prizes of low monetary value will be given to participants based on competition performance

Treatment:

Behavioral: The StepSmart Challenge

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group for the study involves approximately 90 participants aged 12 - 14. across two schools. Participants within the control group will complete the same measures as the intervention group including wearing an actigraph GT3X accelerometer for a seven day period and completing all questionnaires at the same time points as the intervention group.