Can Brief Text Messages Promote Cycling?

Sedentary Lifestyle Clinical Trial

Official title:

Can Brief Text Messages Based on Control Theory Promote the Use of Bike Share Schemes?

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03732573
• Other study ID #: University of Sheffield
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: November 2018
• Est. completion date: June 2019

Study information

• Verified date: November 2018
• Source: University of Sheffield
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Cycling behaviour is not widely adopted despite the known benefits for individuals (e.g. health), communities (e.g. less traffic), and environment (e.g. less pollution). Promoting cycling has been studied with infrastructural changes such as building new paths, segregating cycling and vehicle traffic, placing more traffic signs, etc. Few studies using psychological aspects to promote physical activity indicate that goal setting, goal operating, and self-monitoring techniques to be the most effective ones. Current study aims to convey these techniques via short text messages in order to promote bike share schemes.

Description:

BCTs have been used to promote many different behaviours including physical activity. Reviews show that the most effective techniques for promoting physical activity are self-monitoring, intention formation, feedback on performance, and goal setting. These techniques are also the core tenets of control theory, which suggests that setting, monitoring, and operating on goals are central to self-control.

To date, most of the intervention studies targeting psychological predictors of behaviour have used one-to-one communication by professionals, counselling, incentives etc. However, such methods may be difficult and costly to implement on a large scale. The proposed research therefore tests whether delivering these techniques via a convenient method (i.e. SMS text messages) is effective in promoting use of bike share schemes. We will also test whether the strength of participants' intentions to use bike share schemes moderates the effects of the intervention.

Participants will be randomly allocated into one of two groups (one experimental and control group). Participants in the control group will receive no messages. Participants in the intervention group will receive text messages prompting goal-setting (e.g. "How many times can you use a shared bike scheme over the next week? Set yourself a goal and challenge yourself!"), goal operating (e.g. "Make plans about when you could use a shared bike scheme, such as at a particular time or for a particular journey next week."), and self-monitoring (e.g. "Studies show that keeping track of progress can help people to achieve their goals. This is what the apps provided by the shared bike schemes can do for you!"). The messages will comprise of 160 characters at most and participants in the intervention group will receive three messages per week.

One month after taking the baseline survey, participants will be asked to fill in a follow-up survey which will ask them how many times they have used bike share schemes in total during the past month. This information is provided in the apps in "My Trips" section and participants will be asked to count the number of individual trips that they have taken since they completed the baseline survey. It is hypothesized that participants in the intervention group will use bike share schemes more frequently than those in the control group and that the intervention effect will be moderated by the strength of participants' initial intentions.

Mixed-measures (condition x time) ANOVA will be used to test for differences in shared bike use between the groups between baseline and follow-up. A moderation analysis will also be conducted to test whether the effect of the text messages on bike scheme use differs by intention strength.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 200
• Est. completion date: June 2019
• Est. primary completion date: May 2019
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 80 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults who live in a city with a bike share

• Owns a smart phone

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals who cannot ride a bicycle

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Sedentary Lifestyle

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Text messages
Text messages conveying 3 specific behaviour change techniques

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Sheffield

References & Publications (5)

Bird EL, Baker G, Mutrie N, Ogilvie D, Sahlqvist S, Powell J. Behavior change techniques used to promote walking and cycling: a systematic review. Health Psychol. 2013 Aug;32(8):829-38. doi: 10.1037/a0032078. Epub 2013 Mar 11. Review. — View Citation

Carver CS, Scheier MF. Control theory: a useful conceptual framework for personality-social, clinical, and health psychology. Psychol Bull. 1982 Jul;92(1):111-35. — View Citation

Michie S, Abraham C, Whittington C, McAteer J, Gupta S. Effective techniques in healthy eating and physical activity interventions: a meta-regression. Health Psychol. 2009 Nov;28(6):690-701. doi: 10.1037/a0016136. Review. — View Citation

Michie S, Richardson M, Johnston M, Abraham C, Francis J, Hardeman W, Eccles MP, Cane J, Wood CE. The behavior change technique taxonomy (v1) of 93 hierarchically clustered techniques: building an international consensus for the reporting of behavior change interventions. Ann Behav Med. 2013 Aug;46(1):81-95. doi: 10.1007/s12160-013-9486-6. — View Citation

Rose T, Barker M, Maria Jacob C, Morrison L, Lawrence W, Strömmer S, Vogel C, Woods-Townsend K, Farrell D, Inskip H, Baird J. A Systematic Review of Digital Interventions for Improving the Diet and Physical Activity Behaviors of Adolescents. J Adolesc Health. 2017 Dec;61(6):669-677. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.05.024. Epub 2017 Aug 16. Review. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Change in total number of times bike share schemes used before and after the intervention	Participants will be asked to count number of times they used bike share schemes, which are recorded by phone apps automatically. This will be asked at baseline and follow up questionnaires one month apart.	One month
Secondary	Use of bike schemes in the past seven days	Participants will be asked to count number of times they used bike share schemes over the last week (will be asked in the follow up questionnaire which will be send 1 month after the baseline questionnaire). As our intervention takes three weeks and our follow up will be at the end of the month, we wanted to specify use of bike share schemes in the last week without any messages sent.	One week
Secondary	Change in total number of times participants used their own bike in the past month	Participants will be asked how many times they used their own bikes in the past month. We want to measure how our intervention affects use of personal bikes. This will be compared with baseline scores for those who reports owning a bicycle.	One month
Secondary	Use of one's own bike in the past seven days	Participants will be asked how many times they used their personal bicycles in the past seven days. Similar to use of bike share schemes in the past week, we also want to control for personal bike use in the past week (after all our messages will be sent).	One week