Interactive Malaysian Childhood Healthy Lifestyle (i-MaCHeL) programme: a single-arm pilot study

The growing obesity epidemic in Malaysia presents a public health challenge that requires innovative intervention strategies. In an effort to address this problem, an Interactive Malaysian Childhood Healthy Lifestyle (i-MaCHeL) programme, which is a web-based initiative designed for preschool child-parent dyads offers a novel approach. Nevertheless, the success of such a web-based intervention depends on several interrelated factors. This research aims to examine the feasibility of i-MaCHeL in the Malaysian context, its usability for preschool child-parent dyads, and the acceptability of the programme among these user groups.

This was a single-arm pilot study involving 46 child-parent dyads recruited from six government preschools in Terengganu, Malaysia. The preschools were selected using a cluster random sampling technique at the preschool level. The intervention feasibility was determined based on the retention rate of participants in the pilot study. The System Usability Scale (SUS) and intervention process evaluation were used to assess the usability and acceptability of the web-based i-MaCHeL programme.

The retention data demonstrated that 42 out of 46 participants completed the 13-week intervention programme, which showed that the overall retention rate was 91.3%. A mean (SD) SUS score of 84.70 (13.82) was obtained from parents, indicating that the web-based i-MaCHeL had an acceptable usability level. The mean scores of the process evaluation items ranged from 4.52 (0.63) to 4.83 (0.38), demonstrating that the web-based i-MaCHeL was highly accepted by the parents. The acceptability data also indicated that at least 92.9% (39/42) of the parents agreed/strongly agreed that the web content, programme duration, intervention dose, WhatsApp group, and delivery mode were appropriate.

According to these findings, the i-MaCHeL intervention using a web-based approach was feasible, usable, and acceptable as part of a weight-related behaviour change intervention for preschool child-parent dyads. This pilot study demonstrated that the web-based i-MaCHeL was feasible and promising for delivering weight-related behavioural intervention to child-parent dyads.

ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04711525 . Registered on January 15, 2021.