Use the Back button in your browser to see the other results of your search or to select another record.

Detailed Search Results

Effect of a nine-month web- and app-based workplace intervention to promote healthy lifestyle and weight loss for employees in the social welfare and health care sector: a randomized controlled trial
Balk-Moller NC, Poulsen SK, Larsen TM
Journal of Medical Internet Research 2017 Apr;19(4):e108
clinical trial
5/10 [Eligibility criteria: Yes; Random allocation: Yes; Concealed allocation: No; Baseline comparability: Yes; Blind subjects: No; Blind therapists: No; Blind assessors: No; Adequate follow-up: No; Intention-to-treat analysis: Yes; Between-group comparisons: Yes; Point estimates and variability: Yes. Note: Eligibility criteria item does not contribute to total score] *This score has been confirmed*

BACKGROUND: General health promoting campaigns are often not targeted at the people who need them the most. Web- and app-based tools are a new way to reach, motivate, and help people with poor health status. OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to test a web- and mobile app-based tool ("SoSu-life") on employees in the social welfare and health care sector in Denmark. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was carried out as a workplace intervention. The tool was designed to help users make healthy lifestyle changes such as losing weight, exercise more, and quit smoking. A team competition between the participating workplaces took place during the first 16 weeks of the intervention. Twenty nursing homes for elderly people in 6 municipalities in Denmark participated in the study. The employees at the nursing homes were randomized either 1:1 or 2:1 on a municipality level to use the SoSu-life tool or to serve as a control group with no intervention. All participants underwent baseline measurements including body weight, waist circumference, body fat percentage, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol level and they filled in a questionnaire covering various aspects of health. The participants were measured again after 16 and 38 weeks. RESULTS: A total of 566 (SoSu-life n = 355, control n = 211) participants were included in the study. At 16 weeks there were 369 participants still in the study (SoSu-life n = 227, control n = 142) and 269 participants completed the 38 week intervention (SoSu-life n = 152, control n = 117). At 38 weeks, the SoSu-life group had a larger decrease in body weight (-1.01 kg, p = 0.03), body fat percentage (-0.8%, p = 0.03), and waist circumference (-1.8 cm, p = 0.007) compared with the control group. CONCLUSIONS: The SoSu-life web- and app-based tool had a modest yet beneficial effect on body weight and body fat percentage in the health care sector staff. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02438059; http://ClinicalTrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02438059.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help