NCT05192226

Counterfactual Strategies, Physical Activity, and Wearable Trackers

Completed NA Last updated 12 April 2023

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Counterfactual Strategy in Financial Stress in 40 participants. Completed in 19 December 2022.

Timeline

30 March 2022

Primary endpoint
19 December 2022

19 December 2022

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Texas A&M University
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	single
Primary purpose	basic science
Enrollment	40
Start date	30 March 2022
Primary completion	19 December 2022
Estimated completion	19 December 2022
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• Counterfactual Strategy

Conditions studied

• Financial Stress — all drugs for Financial Stress →
• Socioeconomic Status — all drugs for Socioeconomic Status →
• Social Status — all drugs for Social Status →

Sponsor

Texas A&M University

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Financial Stress or Socioeconomic Status. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Physical activity (PA) has been suggested to lower one's risk of developing cancer, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. While there are benefits from engaging in PA, many people do not engage in enough daily PA, thus increasing the chance of developing non-communicable diseases (NCD). Some NCDs, such as type 2 diabetes, have been shown to occur at higher rates within under-resourced populations, such as low socioeconomic status (SES) communities. Among low-SES communities, external barriers, such as cost and the surrounding physical environment, have been shown to impact engagement in PA. A multi-level PA intervention could be beneficial to help lower NCD health outcomes within at-risk groups, as well as serve as a means to further understand the barriers impeding a healthy lifestyle.

At the individual level, past behavior is suggested to be a significant predictor of future behavior. When faced with a NCD diagnosis, one might think about the past and how things could have turned out differently (i.e., counterfactual thinking). For instance, what if a different action had been taken (e.g., "If only I had taken the stairs more at work")? Counterfactuals can also serve as a way of identifying causal links (e.g., "If only there were more green spaces in my area..."). Counterfactuals (CF) on behaviors that can be acted on can facilitate future behavior change by increasing intentions, motivation, and self-efficacy. In this way, CFs might help with 1) breaking a habitual sedentary cycle and 2) identify causal pathways of barriers impacting PA engagement. While preliminary data in the investigators lab suggests that CF strategies are relevant for heightening contemplation to change behaviors and intentions to change behaviors its impact on motivation and self-efficacy remains unknown. Additionally, these preliminary studies were conducted using small, undergraduate student sample, thus generalizability to low-SES individuals living in the surrounding community is unknown. For the proposed study, participants will use CFs to target barriers in different domains and levels of influence impeding PA. This identification effort will be used to work towards increasing PA behavior (collected by wearable fitness trackers). CFs will also be used to work towards increasing psychological domains relevant to behavior change over the span of 14 weeks.

Publications & conference data

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