NCT03055871

Parents and Children Active Together Study

Parents and Children Active Together: Examining Motivational, Regulatory, and Habitual Intervention Approaches

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 240 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Victoria · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 3 Years – 5 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The purpose of this study is to examine physical activity habit formation in parents and if this can increase moderate to vigorous physical activity behavior in their children over six months.The Primary Research Question is: Does the habit formation condition result in increased moderate-vigorous intensity physical activity of the child compared to the control (education) and education + planning conditions at six months? Hypothesis: Child physical activity will be higher for the habit formation condition in comparison to the more standard physical activity education and planning conditions at six months.

Detailed description

Secondary Research Questions 1. Can group differences among behavioural outcomes be explained through a mediation model? Hypothesis: The covariance of the assigned conditions (habit formation, planning + education, education control) on child PA will be explained by parental co-activity habit, and through the use of consistency and cues regulation strategies (i.e., manipulation check). The habit formation condition will not affect parental support intentions or underlying outcome expectations (benefits of PA) for support of child PA because its effect on behavior is to tie initial intentions to behavioural action or to work independent of goals and intentions. 2. Do factors such as quality of life, parental competence, and family functioning improve with increased PA? Hypothesis: Conditions that increase PA will show commensurate increases in these factors. 3. Is there an intergenerational, seasonal, or gender difference across primary outcomes by assigned condition? Hypothesis: Parents in the habit formation condition will show higher PA via the activities being performed with their children in comparison to the other conditions. No differences in gender or season are hypothesized based on the current research at present

Conditions

• Physical Activity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Habit formation intervention	In addition to the control content and the planning content, this intervention will include material provided to the family that assists with creating physical activity support habits. The material contains a discussion of what habits are, straightforward examples, planning and pointers for forming habits. A key component of the habit intervention will be planning for context-dependent repetition.
BEHAVIORAL	Physical activity planning intervention	This arm will receive the control education content, but will also be provided with family PA planning material. This material will include skill training content (workbook on how to plan for family PA). The material includes a brainstorming exercise for parents where they list physical activities they think their children have found fun in the past, as well as activities that they would find enjoyable to do as a family. We also have Canadian parental survey data on the most preferred co-physical activities for children 3-6. We will provide this material as prompts/suggestions. This list helps create the template for PA planning by contextualizing what the parents would like to do with their kids.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-03-01
• Primary completion: 2025-09-01
• Completion: 2025-12-01
• First posted: 2017-02-16
• Last updated: 2025-04-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada