Effects of individualization and age on mHealth interventions to reduce physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Children and adolescents increasingly do not meet physical activity (PA) recommendations. Hence, insufficient physical activity (IPA) and sedentary behavior (SB) among children and adolescents are relevant behavior change domains for using individualized mobile health (mHealth) interventions. OBJECTIVE The current review and meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of mHealth interventions on IPA and SB with a special focus on age level of individualization. METHODS PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, and Cochrane Library were searched for randomized controlled trials published between January 2000 and March 2021. mHealth interventions for primary prevention in children and adolescents addressing behavior change regarding insufficient PA and SB were included. Included studies were compared for content characteristics as well as methodological quality and summarized narratively. In addition, a meta-analysis with a subsequent exploratory meta-regression examining the moderating effects of age and individualization on overall effectiveness was performed. RESULTS Based on inclusion criteria, 11 of the preliminary 825 identified studies were included for qualitative synthesis and 10 were included for the meta-analysis. Trials included a total of 1515 participants (Age (M, SD) = 11.69 ± 0.788; 65% male; 35% female) with self-reported (n = 4) or device-based measured (n = 7) health data on the duration of SB and physical inactivity (PIA) for an average of 9.3±5.6 weeks. Studies with high levels of individualization decreased insufficient PA levels significantly (d = 0.33; CI = 0.08, 0.58; z = 2.55; p = 0.01), whereas those with low levels of individualization (d = -0.06; CI = -0.32, 0.20; Z = 0.48; p = 0.63), or targeting SB (d = -0.11; CI = -0.01, 0.23; z = 1.73; p = 0.08) indicated no overall significant effect. Heterogeneity of the studies was moderate to low, and significant subgroup differences between trials with high and low levels of individualization (χ2 = 4.04; df = 1; p = 0.04; I² = 75,2%) were found. Age as a moderator variable showed a small effect, but the results were not significant which might have been due to being underpowered. CONCLUSIONS Evidence suggests that mHealth interventions for children and adolescents can foster moderate reductions in PIA but not SB. Moreover, individualized mHealth interventions to reduce PIA seem more effective for adolescents than for children. Although to date only few mHealth studies address inactive and sedentary young people and their quality of evidence is moderate, these findings indicate the relevance of individualization on the one hand and the difficulties in reducing SB using mHealth interventions on the other hand. CLINICALTRIAL PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42020209417; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=209417