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A pedometer-based walking intervention with and without email counseling in general practice: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, May 2018
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Title
A pedometer-based walking intervention with and without email counseling in general practice: a pilot randomized controlled trial
Published in
BMC Public Health, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-5520-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tomas Vetrovsky, Jozef Cupka, Martin Dudek, Blanka Kuthanova, Klaudia Vetrovska, Vaclav Capek, Vaclav Bunc

Abstract

General practitioners play a fundamental role in combatting the current epidemic of physical inactivity, and pedometer-based walking interventions are able to increase physical activity levels of their patients. Supplementing these interventions with email counseling driven by feedback from the pedometer has the potential to further improve their effectiveness but it has to be yet confirmed in clinical trials. Therefore, the aim of our pilot randomized controlled trial is to evaluate the feasibility and potential efficacy of future trials designed to assess the additional benefit of email counseling added to a pedometer-based intervention in a primary care setting. Physically inactive patients were opportunistically recruited from four general practices and randomized to a 12-week pedometer-based intervention with or without email counseling. To explore the feasibility of future trials, we assessed the speed and efficiency of recruitment, adherence to wearing the pedometer, and engagement with email counseling. To evaluate the potential efficacy, daily step-count was the primary outcome and blood pressure, waist and hip circumference, and body mass were the secondary outcomes. Additionally, we conducted a qualitative analysis of structured interviews with the participating general practitioners. The opportunistic recruitment has been shown to be feasible and acceptable, but relatively slow and inefficient; moreover, general practitioners selectively recruited overweight and obese patients. Patients manifested high adherence, wearing the pedometer on 83% (± 20) of days. All patients from the counseling group actively participated in email communication and responded to 46% (± 22) of the emails they received. Both groups significantly increased their daily step-count (pedometer-plus-email, + 2119, p = 0.002; pedometer-alone, + 1336, p = 0.03), but the difference between groups was not significant (p = 0.18). When analyzing both groups combined, there was a significant decrease in body mass (- 0.68 kg, p = 0.04), waist circumference (- 1.73 cm, p = 0.03), and systolic blood pressure (- 3.48 mmHg, p = 0.045). This study demonstrates that adding email counseling to a pedometer-based intervention in a primary care setting is feasible and might have the potential to increase the efficacy of such an intervention in increasing physical activity levels. The trial was retrospectively registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (ID: NCT03135561 , date: April 26, 2017).

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The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 142 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 142 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 18 13%
Student > Bachelor 18 13%
Researcher 13 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 9%
Professor 5 4%
Other 19 13%
Unknown 56 39%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 24 17%
Nursing and Health Professions 23 16%
Sports and Recreations 17 12%
Social Sciences 4 3%
Business, Management and Accounting 3 2%
Other 12 8%
Unknown 59 42%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 May 2018.
All research outputs
#13,529,030
of 23,065,445 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#9,592
of 15,031 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#167,915
of 327,761 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#248
of 318 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,065,445 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 41st percentile – i.e., 41% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,031 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.0. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 327,761 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 48th percentile – i.e., 48% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 318 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 22nd percentile – i.e., 22% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.