PhD scholarship top-up for Jessica Seymour: A very brief intervention for physical activity behaviour change in cardiac rehabilitation: the ‘Measure It!’ trial

Opportunity

Smartphone usage within cardiac rehabilitation is high, with approximately 70% of patients reporting they have a smartphone. We have found that almost half (n=43/94) of these patients use wearable activity trackers (wearables) and/or fitness smartphone applications (apps) at the beginning of their cardiac rehabilitation program (unpublished). Our systematic review and meta-analysis report that apps are effective in increasing physical activity in people with heart disease, where activity levels are low. Wearables have also been found to increase physical activity in cardiac rehabilitation patients in a systematic review and meta-analysis. However, alone and without suitable monitoring, wearable activity trackers are unlikely to result in increased physical activity levels over the longer term.

‘Measure It!’ is a very brief intervention, taking clinicians less than 5 minutes to complete. It includes a self-report and objective measure of physical activity (wearable activity tracker steps) plus physical activity advice. We will test two frequencies of physical activity measurement (2 and 5 measurements in total) by cardiac rehabilitation clinicians over 24-weeks. This hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial will recruit 190 insufficiently active cardiac rehabilitation attendees from 5 cardiac rehabilitation programs in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. Daily minutes of accelerometer moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is the primary effectiveness outcome. Implementation outcomes will include acceptability, appropriateness, adoption, costs and sustainability.

Project Objective

1. Primary: To assess whether physical activity measurement on 5 occasions over 24-weeks is more effective than 2 occasions in improving accelerometer daily minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in insufficiently active cardiac rehabilitation attendees with heart disease.
2. Secondary: To evaluate the potential for ‘Measure It!’ to be implemented into cardiac rehabilitation by determining factors that may influence acceptability, appropriateness, adoption, cost-effectiveness and sustainability of the intervention.