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Ramachandran, Smruthi

University of British Columbia

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a leading contributor to pain, disability, and lower quality of life. Though guidelines recommend physical activity as first-line treatment for people with OA, few engage in adequate levels of physical activity. Conducting a literature review on the use of self-directed digital tools to support physical activity in people with OA revealed only a small subset of tools have improved physical activity participation. Given the need for a self-directed digital tool designed to improve physical activity in people with knee OA symptoms, the KneeOA app was developed alongside arthritis experts and patient partners. The KneeOA app has features supported by behavioral change techniques such as goal setting, action planning, self-monitoring, and being compatible with a Fitbit® activity tracker to promote physical activity participation. This feasibility study evaluated the practicality and implementation of the KneeOA app and Fitbit® based intervention using a single-group pre-post design. Participants used KneeOA with a Fitbit Inspire 2™ for 12 weeks, being encouraged to use the app at least once a week. Questionnaires about pain, OA disease status, as well as physical activity habits and behaviour were completed at 2 time points and a subset of participants completed end of study interviews. This thesis presents the preliminary analysis of the 16 participants who consented between March and September 2022. Though preliminary results suggest 5 out of 6 feasibility benchmarks were not met, practicality could be improved by increasing the frequency of self-monitoring prompts. Though there were no statistical changes, there were trends towards improvements in physical activity habits and behaviour, pain, knee-related symptoms, and activities of daily living, but deterioration in knee-related sports and quality of life measures. Usage data suggested that participants used the app on average for 3 minutes and 11 seconds during each session. Preliminary findings from the interviews suggest that the intervention has been generally acceptable with room for improvements. The feasibility study must be completed to make conclusions on feasibility benchmarks and other trends of findings. Participants will be continued to be purposively sampled and interviewed using a modified guide for the remainder of the study.

Text

2023-06-26

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85152

Rehabilitation Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/