A healthy lifestyle text message intervention for adolescents: protocol for the Health4Me randomized controlled trial

Health4Me Team, Rebecca Raeside*, Karen Spielman, Sarah Maguire, Seema Mihrshahi, Katharine Steinbeck, Melissa Kang, Liliana Laranjo, Karice Hyun, Julie Redfern, Stephanie R Partridge

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
15 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Adolescence presents a window of opportunity to establish good nutrition and physical activity behaviours to carry throughout the life course. Adolescents are at risk of developing cardiovascular and other chronic diseases due to poor the complex interplay of physical and mental health lifestyle risk factors. Text messaging is adolescents main form of everyday communication and text message programs offer a potential solution for support and improvement of lifestyle health behaviours. The primary aim of this study is to determine effectiveness of the Health4Me text message program to improve adolescent's physical activity or nutrition behaviours among adolescents over 6-months, compared to usual care.

METHODS: Health4Me is a virtual, two-arm, single-blind randomised controlled trial, delivering a 6-month healthy lifestyle text message program with optional health counselling. Recruitment will be through digital advertising and primary care services. In total, 330 adolescents will be randomised 1:1 to intervention or control (usual care) groups. The intervention group will receive 4-5 text messages per week for 6-months. All text messages have been co-designed with adolescents. Messages promote a healthy lifestyle by providing practical information, health tips, motivation and support for behaviour change for physical activity, nutrition, mental health, body image, popular digital media and climate and planetary health. Virtual assessments will occur at baseline and 6-months assessing physical health (physical activity, nutrition, body mass index, sleep), mental health (quality of life, self-efficacy, psychological distress, anxiety, depression, eating disorder risk) and lifestyle outcomes (food insecurity and eHealth literacy).

DISCUSSION: This study will determine the effectiveness of a 6-month healthy lifestyle text message intervention to improve physical activity and nutrition outcomes in adolescents.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) ACTRN12622000949785 , Date registered: 05/07/2022.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1805
Pages (from-to)1-9
Number of pages9
JournalBMC Public Health
Volume22
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
Externally publishedYes

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