Konstantinos Antypas*, Norwegian Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine, University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, Norway Silje Camilla Wangberg*, Regional Centre for Substance Use, University Hospital of North Norway, Narvik, Norway Track: Research Presentation Topic: Persuasive communication and technology Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2013-09-25

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Background: A high level of physical activity is an important goal for Cardiac Rehabilitation. Technology-based interventions have been successful in assisting people to achieve and maintain the required level of physical activity. One of the components that is related to the persuasiveness and also the efficacy of these interventions is tailoring. In this research project we study the effect of a tailored Internet and mobile phone based intervention on the level of physical activity as an extension of a face-to-face cardiac rehabilitation stay.
Methods: The study is designed as a parallel-group cluster randomized controlled trial. The recruitment was done among the adult participants of a cardiac rehabilitation program in North-Norway. Inclusion criteria were home Internet access and ownership of a mobile phone. The participants in a monthly program were randomized in a cluster to the control or the intervention condition. All participants had access to a website with generic information regarding cardiac rehabilitation, an online discussion forum and an online activity calendar. Those randomized into the intervention condition received in addition tailored content based on models of health behaviour, through the website and mobile text messages. Main outcome was the level of physical activity after using the intervention for one month measured with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire.
Results: The results of the preliminary analysis of the short-term results of the intervention on the first 20 users will be presented. We will use t-test (significance level at 0.05) to compare the level of physical activity, the usage of the intervention and the satisfaction with the intervention between the two groups.
Conclusions: The study suggests a theory-based intervention that combines models of health behavior in an innovative way, in order to tailor the delivered content. The users have been actively involved in its design, and because of the use of Open-Source software, the intervention can easily and at low-cost be reproduced and expanded by others. Challenges are the recruitment in the elderly population and the possible underrepresentation of women in the study sample.