Biomedical subjects

Heleen Spittaels

Publications and source records attributed to Heleen Spittaels.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

Evaluation of a website-delivered computer-tailored intervention for increasing physical activity in the general population.

OBJECTIVE: To examine if a website-delivered physical activity intervention, that provides participants with computer-tailored feedback, can improve physical activity in the general population. METHODS: Healthy adults (n=434), recruited from parents and staff of 14 primary and secondary schools in Belgium in the spring of 2005, were allocated into one of two intervention groups (receiving intervention with or without repeated feedback) or a no-intervention control group. Physical activity-levels were self-reported at baseline and at 6 months (n=285), using a computerized long version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire online. Repeated measures analysis of co-variances were used to examine differences between the three groups. RESULTS: Intent-to-treat analysis showed significant time by group interaction effects in favor of both intervention groups compared with the control group. Significant increases were found for active transportation (+20, +24, +11 min/week respectively) and leisure-time physical activity (+26, +19, -4 min/week respectively); a significant decrease for minutes sitting on weekdays (-22, -34, +4 min/day respectively). No significant differences were found between both intervention groups. CONCLUSION: A website-delivered intervention, including computer-tailoring, was able to increase physical activity when compared to a no-intervention control group. High drop-out rate and the low number of participants who received repeated feedback indicated that engagement and retention are important challenges in e-health studies.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Effectiveness of an online computer-tailored physical activity intervention in a real-life setting.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-tailored physical activity intervention delivered through the Internet in a real-life setting. Healthy adults (n=526), recruited in six worksites, between 25 and 55 years of age were randomized to one of three conditions receiving, respectively, (i) online-tailored physical activity advice + stage-based reinforcement e-mails, (ii) online-tailored physical activity advice only, (iii) online non-tailored standard physical activity advice. At 6-month follow-up, no differences in physical activity between study conditions were found; total physical activity, physical activity at moderate intensity and physical activity in leisure time significantly increased in all study conditions between baseline and follow-up. Further evaluation of the intervention materials showed that the tailored advice was more read, printed and discussed with others than the standard advice. Most of the respondents in the e-mail group indicated to be satisfied about the number, frequency and usefulness of the stage-based e-mails. In conclusion, although tailored advice was appreciated more than standard advice, no evidence was found that an online-tailored physical activity intervention program outperformed online standard information.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Implementation of an online tailored physical activity intervention for adults in Belgium.

It has been argued that the Internet is a promising channel for distribution of health promoting programs, because of its advantage to reach a wide variety of people at once, at any time and location. However, little research is done to study how we could prompt people to use these online health promoting programs. Therefore the main objective of the present study was to assess if a face-to-face contact stimulates adults to visit a recently developed tailored physical activity website to promote more physical activity in the general Belgian population. The second objective was to test the website under real-life conditions in a small sample. Therefore, 200 flyers, with a call for evaluating the new tailored physical activity website, were distributed to hospital visitors in two different ways. One group of visitors were personally approached by a research assistant and handed over a flyer. Another 100 visitors could simply take a flyer home, without initial personal contact. After two months, telephone interviews were done to make a qualitative evaluation of the website. The results showed that obviously more participants with an initial face-to-face contact (46%) registered on the website in comparison with the participants without personal contact (6%). The used strategy reaches participants of both sexes as well as regular and irregular Internet users. Secondly, the telephone interviews indicated that the website was accepted well, without major problems. We could conclude that distributing flyers combined with a short face-to-face contact, increased the number of visitors compared with distributed flyers without contact and that the tailored physical activity website could be used in real-life situations to promote an active lifestyle in Belgium. However, a controlled study with a larger sample size should be done to test the effectiveness of the tailored intervention in increasing physical activity.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Efficacy of sequential or simultaneous interactive computer-tailored interventions for increasing physical activity and decreasing fat intake.

BACKGROUND: Little evidence exists about the effectiveness of "interactive" computer-tailored interventions and about the combined effectiveness of tailored interventions on physical activity and diet. Furthermore, it is unknown whether they should be executed sequentially or simultaneously. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine (a) the effectiveness of interactive computer-tailored interventions for increasing physical activity and decreasing fat intake and (b) which intervening mode, sequential or simultaneous, is most effective in behavior change. METHODS: Participants (N = 771) were randomly assigned to receive (a) the physical activity and fat intake interventions simultaneously at baseline, (b) the physical activity intervention at baseline and the fat intake intervention 3 months later, (c) the fat intake intervention at baseline and the physical activity intervention 3 months later, or (d) a place in the control group. RESULTS: Six months postbaseline, the results showed that the tailored interventions produced significantly higher physical activity scores, F(2, 573) = 11.4, p < .001, and lower fat intake scores, F(2, 565) = 31.4, p < .001, in the experimental groups when compared to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: For both behaviors, the sequential and simultaneous intervening modes showed to be effective; however, for the fat intake intervention and for the participants who did not meet the recommendation in the physical activity intervention, the simultaneous mode appeared to work better than the sequential mode.

Adult↗