BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION TO PROMOTE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE BEHAVIORS: A FEASIBILITY RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL STUDY

M. Aljubairi¹, S. Alothman¹

¹Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Background: COVID-19 pandemic represents a substantial impact on human health, affecting many lifestyle behaviors. Modifiable lifestyle behaviors, such as physical activity, sedentary behavior, dietary habits, or sleep has been affected due to sustained stay-at-home advisory phase.

Purpose:​Toinvestigate the feasibility of a three-week behavioral intervention sessions delivered virtually and aimed to promote healthy lifestyle practices during a stay-at-home advisory phase.

Methods: A participant-blinded randomized controlled trial was performed through virtual platforms setting. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups, using a (1:1) allocation. They were assigned to motivational interviewing (MI) intervention or attention group, with pre and post-intervention assessment. The MI treatment consisted of six sessions (twice each week). The same number of virtual structured sessions consisted of brief advice to promote healthy lifestyle were provided for the attention group. Outcome measures were measured using self-reported questionnaire; including physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep, dietary habits, distress, social support, and fear of COVID-19.

Results: feasibility outcomes indicated 39 of the 50 participants (78%) completed the three-week trial. The dropout rate was 21.7% for the attention group and 22.2% for the intervention group. Participating in MI revealed a significant interventional effect of physical activity level compared with the attention group (P=0.03). Further, distress decreased significantly (P=0.01). While fear of COVID-19 was decreased significantly in both group, however, to intervention group showed a greater reduction (P=0.00). MI group have also reported a decrease in sedentary behavior duration by 1.8 h/day contrasted to the control group 0.8 h/day. No other significant changes were observed.

Conclusions: It is feasible to deliver behavioral change interventions virtually. Further, motivational interviewing can be used as a useful strategy for favorable promotion of healthy lifestyle and behavioral changes.

Implications: The control group received an online educational program, but not same amount of attention in which might influence the subjectivity of outcomes in this work. Future work is needed to include objective measurements of physical activity, sleep quality, and sedentary behavior using accelerometers such as Actigraph and ActivPAL.

Funding acknowledgements: I extend appreciation to the Deputyship for Research & Innovation, Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for funding this research

Keywords:
Behavior change
Health promotion

Topics:
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University

Committee: Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Ethics number: 20-0142