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Maintenance of behaviour change following a community-wide gamification based physical activity intervention
- Source :
- Preventive Medicine Reports, Preventive Medicine Reports, Vol 13, Iss, Pp 37-40 (2019)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Gamification refers to the use of game mechanics (e.g. competition, point scoring, progress visualisation and task setting) to engage and motivate people to achieve an end goal. Public health programs that incorporate gamification-based approaches which aim to improve the public's health have grown in popularity, however most commonplace are individualistic, smartphone-based applications and few studies have been conducted on community-wide interventions. Furthermore, the few studies which have been conducted have relied on small sample sizes with short-term follow-up. In view of this gap in current understanding, this study explored the impact of a community-wide gamified intervention, called ‘Beat the Street’ (in Reading UK) on levels of physical activity at 1 and 2-years post-intervention (between 2014 and 2016). Data were available for N = 1567 participants at one-year post-intervention and N = 723 participants at 2-years post-intervention. A Pretest-Posttest analysis revealed a 11% and 13% decrease in levels of inactivity at 1 and 2-years post-intervention respectively. Furthermore, participants who were inactive at baseline reported undertaking 3.4 and 3.8 days of activity at 1 and 2-years post-intervention, respectively. These findings provide promising preliminary evidence that gamification may be effective for decreasing physical inactivity and game-design mechanisms which may support behaviour change are discussed.<br />Highlights • This study explored behaviour change 1 and 2 year’s following a community-wide gamified physical activity intervention • 61% and 72% of inactive participants had become active at 1 and 2-years following the intervention, respectively. • Inactive participants were undertaking an average of 3.4 and 3.8 days of activity at 1 and 2-years, respectively
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Technology
media_common.quotation_subject
Applied psychology
Psychological intervention
lcsh:Medicine
030209 endocrinology & metabolism
Health Informatics
Intervention
Community
Task (project management)
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Intervention (counseling)
Reading (process)
medicine
030212 general & internal medicine
Baseline (configuration management)
media_common
Game mechanics
Physical activity
Public health
lcsh:R
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Regular Article
Popularity
Gamification
Psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 22113355
- Volume :
- 13
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Preventive medicine reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....5fbeaf1c19d4a9125517314d18a2a3c3