The effectiveness of physical activity monitoring and distance counselling in an occupational health setting--a research protocol for a randomised controlled trial (CoAct).

Karita Reijonsaari,Simo Taimela,Willem Van Mechelen,Aki Vehtari,Timo Aro

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-494

Karita Reijonsaari, Simo Taimela + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-9-494

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Abstract

BackgroundThe CoAct (Cocreating Activity) study is investigating a novel lifestyle intervention, aimed at the working population, with daily activity monitoring and distance counselling via telephone and secure web messages. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of lifestyle counselling on the level of physical activity in an occupational health setting. The purposes include also analysing the potential effects of changes in physical activity on productivity at work and sickness absence, and healthcare costs. This article describes the design of the study and the participant flow until and including randomization.Methods/DesignCoAct is a randomised controlled trial with two arms: a control group and intervention group with daily activity monitoring and distance counselling. The intervention focuses on lifestyle modification and takes 12 months. The study population consists of volunteers from 1100 eligible employees of a Finnish insurance company. The primary outcomes of this study are change in physical activity measured in MET minutes per week, work productivity and sickness absence, and healthcare utilisation. Secondary outcomes include various physiological measures. Cost-effectiveness analysis will also be performed. The outcomes will be measured by questionnaires at baseline, after 6, 12, and 24 months, and sickness absence will be obtained from the employer's registers.DiscussionNo trials are yet available that have evaluated the effectiveness of daily physical activity monitoring and distance counselling in an occupational health setting over a 12 month period and no data on cost-effectiveness of such intervention are available.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00994565

Highlights

The CoAct (Cocreating Activity) study is investigating a novel lifestyle intervention, aimed at the working population, with daily activity monitoring and distance counselling via telephone and secure web messages
The main purpose of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness on physical activity of a lifestyle programme with daily monitoring of activity and distance counselling compared to self help instruction, in a large cohort with a broad age spectrum of employees, at 12 months
All employees willing to participate will individually sign an informed consent form that allows for their personal data from the other data registers to be collected to the research database and be used for the purposes of this study

Summary

Introduction

The CoAct (Cocreating Activity) study is investigating a novel lifestyle intervention, aimed at the working population, with daily activity monitoring and distance counselling via telephone and secure web messages. More than one billion adults are overweight (i.e., having a Body Mass Index (BMI) > 25 kg/m2) already and the numbers are still rising [3] For those who are physically inactive, becoming active is important to alleviate overweight related health problems and to reduce chances of developing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes [4]. The work setting provides an opportunity to introduce a large group of adults to a lifestyle modification programme Such programmes in health care settings usually rely on lifestyle modification to change dietary intake and/or physical activity [7]. These strategies are known to produce weight loss [8,9]. Only two previous randomised trial have been published on the effectiveness of PA interventions in the occupational setting, and the results have not been encouraging [10,11]

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