Way to Be Active I (Teams)

University of Pennsylvania

Status: Completed

Conditions: Sedentary Employees

Treatments: Behavioral: Individual Incentives; Behavioral: Individual plus Team Incentives; Behavioral: Team Incentives

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT02001194

819101

Details and patient eligibility

About

Employers are increasingly looking for opportunities to motivate sedentary employees to become more physically active. Workplace walking programs have had mixed success and typically show most improvement among participants that are already fairly active at a baseline. The goal of this study is to determine whether a financial incentive program can motivate sedentary employees to increase the number of steps they walk per day to meet a minimum threshold.

Our primary outcome measure is the proportion of days a minimum activity of 7000 steps or more is achieved. We will assess outcomes each week for 3 months using incentives followed by 3 months of follow-up without incentives. Secondary outcomes will include the average steps walked per day.

Enrollment: 304 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 100 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 1. We will use a minimum age of 18 to ensure all individuals are legally able to consent.
• 2. Participant will need an iPhone or Android smartphone to be able to use the Moves App for tracking steps

Exclusion criteria

• Conditions that would make participation infeasible: 1a. Inability to consent 1b. Illiteracy and/or inability to speak, read, and write English 1c. Participation in another research study 2. Conditions that would make participation unsafe: 2a. Current treatment for drug or alcohol use 2b. Consumption of at least 5 alcoholic drinks per day 2c. Myocardial infarction or stroke within the past 6 months 2d. Current addiction to prescription medicines or street drugs 2e. Serious psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., severe major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia) 2f. Pregnant or currently breastfeeding 2g. Metastatic cancer 2h. Unstable medical conditions that would likely prevent the participant from completing the study

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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304 participants in 4 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants receive either an email or text message daily (based on the participant's preference) stating whether the participant achieved the 7000 step goal during the previous day. Each participant will also be notified as to how many of their teammates reached the goal the previous day. Control Arm will receive no financial incentive.

Individual

Experimental group

Description:

Participants receive either an email or text message daily (based on the participant's preference) stating whether the participant achieved the 7000 step goal during the previous day. Each participant will also be notified as to how many of their teammates reached the goal the previous day. Every day one team from the arm will be chosen at random as the winning team. Each participant on the winning team receives $50 if that participant met the step goal during the prior day.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Individual Incentives

Team

Experimental group

Description:

Participants receive either an email or text message daily (based on the participant's preference) stating whether the participant achieved the 7000 step goal during the previous day. Each participant will also be notified as to how many of their teammates reached the goal the previous day. Every day one team from the arm will be chosen at random as the winning team. Each participant on the winning team receives $50 only if all four team members met the step goal during the prior day.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Team Incentives

Individual Plus Team

Experimental group

Description:

Participants receive either an email or text message daily (based on the participant's preference) stating whether the participant achieved the 7000 step goal during the previous day. Each participant will also be notified as to how many of their teammates reached the goal the previous day. Every day one team from the arm will be chosen at random as the winning team. Each participant on the winning team receives $20 if the participant met the step goal during the prior day the participants met their own goal. Each participant will also receive an additional $10 for every one of the other three team members that also met the goal.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Individual plus Team Incentives