NCT02553980

Virtual Trainer System (3rd Version) for Physical Activity Promotion in Middle-aged Hong Kong Adults

Development and Dissemination of an Online Exercise and Health Promotion Program for Hong Kong Middle-aged Chinese: The Virtual Trainer System 3rd Version

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 261 (actual)
• Sponsor: Chinese University of Hong Kong · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Practicing a habitual physical activity is important for health. A Virtual Trainer (VT) online system was developed in 2006 (1st version) and improved in 2010 (2nd version) for encouraging an active lifestyle. This project intends to further improve the VT (3rd version) which incorporates more effective psychological and e-health theories, and disseminate it to Hong Kong middle-aged adults.

Detailed description

Hong Kong is a highly urbanized city that many people work long hours daily and over the week, especially for those middle-aged adults. The limited time and lack of professional exercise instruction are always the barriers for them to participate in physical activity (PA). With the advances in information technology (IT), the knowledge of PA can be rapidly disseminated through the Internet and smartphone. We design an IT- instruction based lifestyle intervention program, with the purpose to improve PA level and health status in a sample of middle-aged Hong Kong adults. A two-arm parallel individual level randomized controlled trial (RCT) named "Follow Your Virtual Trainer (FYVT)" will be conducted among 200 healthy and sedentary Chinese adults aged from 40 to 65 years. The participants will be randomly allocated into intervention group or control group. Those in intervention group will under the instruction of a web-based computer software termed "Virtual Trainer", which interact with their smartphone apps, to conduct a 3-month self-planned PA training program. A serious of online video seminars with healthy lifestyle themes will be released to the participants biweekly among 3 months. After that, 6 months observation will be followed. Those in control group will only receive a written advice of standard PA recommendation, and the textual content of the seminars. The assessments will be implemented at baseline, 3, 6, and 9 month. Primary outcome is PA measured by accelerometer and International Physical Activity Questionnaire; the second outcomes include cardio-respiratory fitness, resting energy expenditure, anthropometrics, body composition, blood pressure, health-related quality of life, sleep quality and quantity, fatigue, behavior mediators, and maintenance of PA.

Conditions

• Sedentary Lifestyle

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Follow Your Virtual Trainer (FYVT) program	Participants in intervention group will under the instruction of a web-based computer software termed "Virtual Trainer", which interact with their smartphone apps, to conduct a 3-month self-planned PA training program. A serious of online video seminars related to healthy lifestyle advice will be released to the participants among 3 months. After that, 6 months observation will be followed.
OTHER	Daily PA recommendation & healthy lifestyle suggestions	A written advice of daily PA recommendation, and the textual content of the healthy lifestyle seminars will be provided to the participants.

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-10-01
• Primary completion: 2017-10-30
• Completion: 2017-10-30
• First posted: 2015-09-18
• Last updated: 2019-07-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Hong Kong