NCT04505241

Evaluating Mechanisms of Action of Adaptive Goal-Setting for Physical Activity

Completed NA Last updated 13 April 2021

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Remotely-delivered physical activity promotion in Motivation in 36 participants. Completed in 1 April 2021.

Timeline

21 September 2020

Primary endpoint
1 February 2021

1 April 2021

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Drexel University
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	double
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	36
Start date	21 September 2020
Primary completion	1 February 2021
Estimated completion	1 April 2021
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Remotely-delivered physical activity promotion

Conditions studied

• Motivation — all drugs for Motivation →
• Physical Activity Promotion — all drugs for Physical Activity Promotion →
• Behavior Change — all drugs for Behavior Change →
• Mobile Health — all drugs for Mobile Health →

Sponsor

Drexel University

Who can join

Adults 18 to 75, any sex, with Motivation or Physical Activity Promotion. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Behavior modification programs hold promise for increasing levels of physical activity (PA) for individuals who are insufficiently active. However, existing interventions, which typically prescribe uniform PA goals across participants, are limited by their insensitivity to changing individual needs and circumstances over time. An alternative approach is to continuously adjust goal difficulty to match fluctuations in individual performance, or adaptive goal-setting (AGS), which evidence suggests may more effective for increasing PA than non-adaptive approaches. Still, no prior studies have examined the psychological mechanisms targeted by AGS, which limits the ability to further refine and disseminate this technique. In this exploratory study, several candidate mechanisms of AGS (expectancy beliefs about goals, perceived value of goals, affective appraisal of goals, implicit attitudes towards exercise) will be examined. Adult participants interested in increasing their level of physical activity (N = 36) will be randomized to receive 6 weeks of either adaptive goal-setting (AGS) or non-adaptive, static goal-setting (SGS) as part of a remote, low-intensity PA intervention. The primary aim of the study will be to evaluate the hypothesis that AGS, as compared to SGS, results in greater increases over time to four hypothesized psychological mechanisms. The secondary aim will be to evaluate whether post-intervention increases to any among these three mechanisms mediate the relationship between intervention type (AGS vs. SGS) and increases to PA over the course of the intervention.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.