RecruitingACTRN12622001087741

Pilot trial of the Health4Life app

Assessing the usability and acceptability of a multiple health behavior change, self-monitoring mobile app for adolescents: A pilot trial of the Health4Life app

Sponsor

NHMRC CTC

Enrollment

75 participants

Start Date

Nov 15, 2022

Study Type

Interventional

Conditions

excessive recreational screen time poor diet

Summary

This pilot study will recruit 75 adolescents and ask them to use the Health4Life app – an evidence-based healthy lifestyles mobile phone app developed by the research team, for one month. During the month, participants will receive text messages to remind them to access the app. The timing and content of these text messages will be randomised with participants receiving, on average, one message a day. The purpose of the study is to assess the acceptability of these text messages and their timing as well as the feasibility and acceptability of the Health4Life app as a whole.

Eligibility

Sex: Both males and femalesMin Age: 13 YearssMax Age: 17 Yearss

Plain Language Summary

Simplified for easier understanding

The Health4Life app is an evidence-based healthy lifestyles app designed by researchers to help Australian teenagers make positive choices around sleep, diet, physical activity, screen time, alcohol, and smoking. While the app itself has previously been evaluated, this pilot study focuses on one specific question: does receiving personalised text message reminders help teenagers actually use the app more, and does the timing of those messages matter? Participants aged 13–17 use the Health4Life app for one month and receive daily text messages at varying times to remind them to engage with the app. The content and timing of messages are randomised to test which combinations are most effective. The study also measures whether the overall app experience is acceptable and feasible as a health behaviour tool. Your teenager may be eligible if they are aged 13–17, live in Australia, have access to a smartphone, are willing to download the Health4Life app, and have sufficient English literacy. The study does not involve any invasive procedures — it is entirely app-based.

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Interventions

The Health4Life app: Health4Life app, is a multiple health behaviour change, self-monitoring mobile app for adolescents. Participants are asked to download the app and use it for 30 days, however ac

The Health4Life app: Health4Life app, is a multiple health behaviour change, self-monitoring mobile app for adolescents. Participants are asked to download the app and use it for 30 days, however actual app usage is completely at the participant's discretion. The Health4Life app consists of the following sections: - Dashboard: provides a simple and visual portrayal of the user’s Big 6 health behaviours for the current day and a menu to access all other pages - Diary: allows users to record their health behaviours and mood. - Progress: allows users to view their progress for each of the 6 health behaviours. - Goals: allows users to complete a guided goal-setting activity to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound (SMART) goals for any of the Big 6 behaviours. - Rewards: allows users to view how many medals they have received and access information about what they need to do to earn medals for each health behaviour. - Menu: users can access their profile and app settings along with resources and emergency contact details for relevant chat and telephone help lines. - 7 Modules which provide users with detail information, tips and strategies and use cognitive behaviour therapy and motivational enhancement strategies to help users overcome potential barriers to changing their health behaviours (e.g. poor mood) Information regarding the development of the Health4Life app is available in Thornton et al (2021) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33843590/). Use of the Health4Life app will be monitored via app usage records which will record the date of time of app access, date and time participants access different sections of the app and any information participants enter into the app (i.e. self-reports of health behaviours and mood). Peer-to-peer text messages: Peer-like messages, co-created by young people, will be written as if they are from the users’ ‘Health4Life buddy’, a teenage character/avatar they will have previously ‘met’ within Health4Life app and selected to guide them through their interactions with the app. Messages are designed to prompt participants to access the Health4Life app and will be of 1-2 sentences in length. Delivery of these messages will be recorded. Delivery of the text messages will be determined via micro-randomisation. Specifically all participants will be randomised to receive the intervention (peer-to-peer messages) or one of the comparators (generic messages or no message) once in the morning and once in the afternoon, every day for 30 days. At each randomisation point participants will have a 25% chance of receiving a peer-to-peer message, a 25% of receiving a generic message and a 50% chance of receiving no message (i.e. participants will receive between 0 and 2 messages each day, with an average of 1 message per day).

Locations(1)

ACT,NSW,NT,QLD,SA,TAS,WA,VIC, Australia

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ACTRN12622001087741