Adoption, acceptability and sustained use of digital interventions to promote physical activity among inactive adults: a mixed-method study

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the positive effects of physical activity (PA) to prevent lifestyle diseases and improve health and well-being, only one-third of Norwegian adults meet the minimum recommendations on PA. Digital interventions to promote PA in inactive adults may improve health and well-being by being available, personalized and adequate. Knowledge on users' adoption, acceptability and sustainability of digital interventions to promote PA is still limited.

Objective: To investigate the adoption, acceptability and sustained use of three digital interventions for promoting PA among inactive adults.

Design: A randomized control trial (ONWARDS) with 183 participants assigned to 3 groups and followed up for 18 months. All participants received a wearable activity tracker with the personalized metric Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) on a mobile app, two groups received additional access to online training and one group had also access to online social support.

Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used to address the study objective. Acceptability was evaluated through the System Usability Scale (SUS) (n = 134) at 6 months. Adoption and sustained use were evaluated through a set of questions administered at 12 months (n = 109). Individual interviews were performed at 6 months with a sample of participants (n = 18). Quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, whereas qualitative data were analyzed using the Framework approach.

Results: PAI was the most successful intervention, with satisfactory usability and positive effects on motivation and behavior change, contributing to high adoption and sustained use. Online social support had a high acceptability and sustained use, but the intervention was not perceived as motivational to increase PA. Online training had low adoption, usability and sustained use. The qualitative interviews identified five main themes: (1) overall approach to physical activity, (2) motivation, (3) barriers to perform PA, (4) effects of PA, and (5) usability and acceptability of the digital interventions.

Conclusion: Personalized digital interventions integrating behavior change techniques such as individual feedback and goal setting are more likely to increase acceptability, adoption and sustained use. Future studies should investigate which digital interventions or combinations of different interventions are more successful in promoting PA among inactive adults according to the characteristics and preferences of the users.

Trial registration: Clinical trial registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04526444.

Keywords: RCT; acceptability; adoption; behavioral change; digital intervention; motivation; physical activity; sustained use.