Abstract
There is limited evidence exploring the long-term effectiveness of sedentary behaviour interventions. This study aimed to explore participant experiences six months post-intervention to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of a low-cost, theory-informed, multi-component, individually tailored, six-week intervention for the reduction of occupational sedentary behaviour. Twenty-five participants who completed a sedentary behaviour intervention participated in a six-month follow-up. Participants wore an activity monitoring device and participated in a semi-structured interview. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed. The pre- and postintervention quantitative data were analysed via paired samples t-tests. Occupational sitting time was reduced by an average of 40.6 ± 76.1 min/work day at six months as compared to pre-intervention. Twenty-three participants indicated that they had continued with their occupational sedentary behaviour change with various stages of change identified. Self-efficacy towards goal achievement remained high at the six-month follow-up. The most prominent goal identified by the participants to reduce occupational sedentary behaviour was walking. Barriers included attending seated meetings, perceived workloads or work tasks and work environments. Suggested strategies to overcome barriers included changing the work environment, providing prompts and receiving support from management. The current study provides insight into the long-term adherence to an occupational sedentary behaviour intervention.
Highlights
Occupational sedentary behaviour is a major contributor (49%) to overall sitting time (Parry & Straker, 2013)
It appears that interventions which aim to reduce occupational sitting time are effective in eliciting short-term behaviour change; there is limited literature surrounding the long-term adherence to behaviour change following the completion of multi-component sedentary behaviour reduction interventions
The group average reduction in daily sitting time between pre- and post-intervention was maintained at six months
Summary
Occupational sedentary behaviour is a major contributor (49%) to overall sitting time (Parry & Straker, 2013). The workplace is an ideal setting to implement an intervention to reduce sedentary behaviour, especially for those who work in an office setting (Clemes et al, 2015; Parry & Straker, 2013). A four-week multi-component intervention including the installation of sit-to-stand workstations and other motivation-based strategies was able to reduce sitting time by 2 h/day for office workers (Healy et al, 2013). A low-cost four-week multi-component intervention which included support from managers, workplace champions to send emails, installing computer software, increased social media awareness, and point-of-decision prompts reduced sitting time by 26 min/day for office-based workers (Mackenzie, Goyder, & Eves, 2015). An eight-week intervention determined that short (1–2 min) frequent breaks every half hour were more effective in reducing occupational sedentary behaviour compared to longer (2 × 15 min) less frequent breaks (Mailey, Rosenkranz, Casey, & Swank, 2016). It appears that interventions which aim to reduce occupational sitting time are effective in eliciting short-term behaviour change; there is limited literature surrounding the long-term adherence to behaviour change following the completion of multi-component sedentary behaviour reduction interventions
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