The effectiveness of physical activity interventions using activity trackers during or after inpatient care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
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Bor, P
van der Ploeg, HP
de Groot, V
van der Schaaf, M
van der Leeden, M
OPRAH consortium
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Abstract
Background Promoting physical activity (PA) in patients during and/or after an inpatient stay appears important but challenging. Interventions using activity trackers seem promising to increase PA and enhance recovery of physical functioning.
Objective To review the effectiveness of physical activity interventions using activity trackers on improving PA and physical functioning, compared to usual care in patients during and/or after inpatient care. In addition, it was determined whether the following intervention characteristics increase the effectiveness of these interventions: the number of behaviour change techniques (BCTs) used, the use of a theoretical model or the addition of coaching by a health professional.
Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data Sources PubMed, EMBASE, Cinahl, SportDiscus and Web of Science databases were searched in March 2020 and updated in March 2021.
Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including interventions using activity trackers and feedback on PA in adult patients during, or less than 3 months after, hospitalization or inpatient rehabilitation.
Methods Following database search and title and abstract screening, articles were screened on full text for eligibility and then assessed for risk of bias by using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Meta-analyses, including subgroup analysis on intervention characteristics, were conducted for the outcomes PA and physical functioning.
Results Overall, 21 RCTs totalling 2355 patients were included. The trials covered a variety of clinical areas. There was considerable heterogeneity between studies. For the 13 studies that measured PA as an outcome variable(N = 1435), a significant small positive effect in favour of the intervention was found (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.34; 95%CI 0.12–0.56). For the 13 studies that measured physical functioning as an outcome variable (N = 1415) no significant effect was found (SMD = 0.09; 95%CI -0.02 - 0.19). Effectiveness on PA seems to improve by providing the intervention both during and after the inpatient period and by using a theoretical model, multiple BCTs and coaching by a health professional.
Conclusion Interventions using activity trackers during and/or after inpatient care can be effective in increasing the level of PA. However, these improvements did not necessarily translate into improvements in physical functioning. Several intervention characteristics were found to increase the effectiveness of PA interventions.
Trial registration Registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020175977) on March 23th, 2020.
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International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity
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19
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© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
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Nutrition and dietetics
Epidemiology
Sports science and exercise
Activity tracker
Hospitalization
Physical activity
Physical functioning
Rehabilitation
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de Leeuwerk, ME; Bor, P; van der Ploeg, HP; de Groot, V; van der Schaaf, M; van der Leeden, M; OPRAH consortium, The effectiveness of physical activity interventions using activity trackers during or after inpatient care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2022, 19, pp. 59