A pedometer-based walking intervention with and without email counseling in general practice: a pilot randomized...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Preventive Medicine
• Digital Health

Background:

• General practitioners are key in addressing physical inactivity.
• Pedometer interventions increase patient physical activity.
• Email counseling may enhance pedometer interventions, but requires clinical validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of a pilot randomized controlled trial.
• To assess the potential efficacy of adding email counseling to pedometer interventions.
• To inform future trials on the added benefit of email counseling in primary care.

Main Methods:

• Opportunistic recruitment of physically inactive patients from general practices.
• Randomization to a 12-week pedometer intervention with or without email counseling.
• Assessment of recruitment, adherence, engagement, daily step-count, and secondary health outcomes.

Main Results:

• Opportunistic recruitment was feasible but slow; practitioners selectively recruited overweight/obese patients.
• High patient adherence to pedometer wear (83%) and engagement with email counseling (46% response rate).
• Both groups increased daily step-count; no significant difference between groups. Combined analysis showed significant reductions in body mass, waist circumference, and systolic blood pressure.

Conclusions:

• Adding email counseling to pedometer interventions in primary care is feasible.
• This combined approach shows potential to increase the efficacy of physical activity interventions.
• Results support further investigation in larger clinical trials.