Background: There is overwhelming evidence for the preventive effects of regular physical activity and healthy eating habits on the risk for developing a non-communicable disease (NCD). Increasing attention has been paid to community-wide approaches in the battle against NCDs. Communities can create supportive policies, modify physical environments, and foster local stakeholder engagement through intersectoral collaboration to encourage communities to support healthy lifestyles. The Pep initiative is based on intersectoral community-wide collaboration among Sweden’s municipalities. Primary targets are municipality professionals who work with children and young people as well as parents of children <18 years. The goal is to spread knowledge and create commitment to children’s and young people’s health with a special focus on physical activity and healthy eating habits to facilitate and support a healthy lifestyle. The overarching aim of the research project described in this study protocol is to investigate factors that influence the implementation of the Pep initiative in Sweden, to inform tailored implementation strategies addressing the needs and local prerequisites of the different municipalities.

Methods: The project includes a qualitative and a quantitative study and is framed by a theoretical model involving four complementary forms of knowledge, explicitly recognized in the Pep initiative: knowledge about the issue; knowledge about interventions; knowledge about the context; and knowledge about implementation. Study 1 is a focus group study exploring barriers and facilitators for implementing the Pep initiative. The study will be carried out in six municipalities, selected purposively to provide wide variation in municipality characteristics, including population size and geographical location. Data will be analyzed using thematic analysis. Study 2 is a cross-sectional web-based survey investigating the implementability of the Pep initiative in Sweden’s 290 municipalities. Conditions for implementing different areas of the Pep initiative will be examined in terms of the acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility, three predictors of implementation success. Data will be analyzed using non-parametric statistics.

Discussion: The findings of the two studies will increase understanding of the prerequisites for implementing the Pep initiative in Swedish municipalities, which will provide valuable input into how implementation of the Pep initiative can best be facilitated in the different municipality settings.

BACKGROUND: Obesity in childhood is a public health concern worldwide and mobile phone-based interventions (mHealth) has shown to facilitate obesity prevention. However, more research is needed on the implementation of digital tools in routine primary care. This study explored behavior change determinants for implementing a health promotion mHealth intervention (MINISTOP 2.0 app) targeting parents of 4-year-olds.

METHODS: Secondary data from telephone interviews (n = 15) with child health care nurses working within primary child healthcare in Sweden was analyzed using directed content analysis and the COM-B model.

RESULTS: Barriers for implementation included: limited knowledge about using technology and reservations about how and to what extent parents would use mHealth. Potential facilitators included nurses' openness to learn and try new tools, confidence in their role and engagement in reaching parents as well as beliefs that the app could improve practice by prompting dialogue and being a shared platform. Nurses expressed a strong professional identity and shared understanding of their practice, mechanisms that could potentially inhibit or facilitate implementation.

CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest cautious optimism regarding implementing mobile phone-based tools in child primary healthcare in terms of capability, opportunity and motivation among stakeholders. Implementation strategies such as educational outreach visits and making the intervention testable among stakeholders could further facilitate implementation in this clinical context. However, more research is needed on behavior change determinants in different stages of real-world implementation.

BackgroundNational surveys in Sweden demonstrate that the majority of young people do not engage in health promoting behaviours at levels recommended by the Public Health Agency of Sweden. The objective of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of a novel mHealth intervention named LIFE4YOUth, which targets multiple lifestyle behaviours (alcohol, diet, physical activity, and smoking) among high school students in Sweden.MethodsA 2-arm parallel groups single blind randomised controlled trial (1:1) will be employed to estimate the effectiveness of the novel mHealth intervention. Students will be recruited at high schools throughout Sweden, and will be included if they fulfil one of six criteria relating to unhealthy behaviours with respect to alcohol, diet, physical activity and smoking. Eligible participants will be randomised to either receive the novel intervention immediately, or to be placed on a waiting list for 4 months. The intervention consists of a combination of recurring screening, text messages, and an interactive platform which is adaptable to individual preferences. Outcome measures with respect to alcohol, diet, physical activity and smoking will be assessed through questionnaires at 2 and 4 months post randomisation.DiscussionThe findings of this trial could be generalised to a diverse high-school student population as our recruitment encompass a large proportion of schools throughout Sweden with various educational profiles. Furthermore, if effective, the mHealth intervention has good potential to be able to be scaled up and disseminated at high schools nationally.Trial registrationRegistered prospectively on 2020-05-20 in ISRCTN (ISRCTN34468623).

Background: High positive mental health, including the ability to cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and be able to contribute to one’s community, has been associated with various health outcomes. The role of positive mental health is therefore increasingly recognized in national mental health promotion programs and policies. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions could be a cost-effective way to disseminate positive psychological interventions to the general population.

Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the effect of a fully automated mHealth intervention on positive mental health, and anxiety and depression symptomology among Swedish university students using a randomized controlled trial design.

Methods: A 2-arm, single-blind (researchers), parallel-groups randomized controlled trial with an mHealth positive psychology program intervention group and a relevant online mental health information control group was employed to estimate the effect of the novel intervention. Participants were recruited using digital advertising through student health care centers in Sweden. Inclusion criteria were (1) university students, (2) able to read and understand Swedish, (3) and have access to a mobile phone. Exclusion criteria were high positive mental health, as assessed by the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF), or high depression and anxiety symptomology, as assessed by the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS). The primary outcome was positive mental health (MHC-SF), and the secondary outcomes were depression and anxiety symptomatology (HADS). The subscales of MHC-SF were also analyzed as exploratory outcomes. Outcomes were measured 3 months after randomization through questionnaires completed on the participants’ mobile phones.

Results: A total of 654 participants (median age 25 years), including 510 (78.0%) identifying as female, were randomized to either the intervention (n=348) or control group (n=306). At follow-up, positive mental health was significantly higher in the intervention group compared with the control group (incidence rate ratio [IRR]=1.067, 95% CI 1.024-1.112, P=.002). For both depression and anxiety symptomatology, the intervention group showed significantly lower scores at follow-up compared with the control group (depression: IRR=0.820, 95% CI 0.714-0.942, P=.005; anxiety: IRR=0.899, 95% CI 0.840-0.962, P=.002). Follow-up rates were lower than expected (58.3% for primary outcomes and 52.3% for secondary outcomes); however, attrition analyses did not identify any systematic attrition with respect to baseline variables.

Conclusions: The mHealth intervention was estimated to be superior to usual care in increasing positive mental health among university students. A protective effect of the intervention was also found on depressive and anxiety symptoms. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using an automated mobile phone format to enhance positive mental health, which offers promise for the use of mHealth solutions in public mental health promotion.

Trial Registration: International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Registry ISRCTN54748632; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN54748632

Background:Young adults’ mental health is characterized by relatively high rates of stress and anxiety and low levels of help-seeking behavior. Mobile health (mHealth) interventions could offer a cost-effective and readily available avenue to provide personalized support to young adults. More research needs to be directed at the development of mHealth interventions targeting youths specifically, as well as at determining how to reach young people and how to effectively intervene to improve psychological well-being.

Objective:The objective was to gather perceptions from high school students to inform the development of a prototype mHealth intervention aiming to promote psychological well-being.

Methods:A mixed methods design was used to (1) investigate high school students’ perceptions about stress and its consequences in daily life, as well as their ability to cope with stress, and (2) explore their preferences and design recommendations for an mHealth intervention to improve psychological well-being. Students from two high schools in the southeast of Sweden were invited to take part in the study. Recruitment of high school students was completed over a 6-week period, between October 25 and December 7, 2018. Recruitment entailed inviting students to complete a stress test (ie, screening and feedback) on their mobile phones. After completing the stress test, all participants were invited to complete a follow-up questionnaire and take part in telephone interviews.

Results:A total of 149 high school students completed the stress test, of which 68 completed the questionnaire. There were 67 free-text comments distributed across the items. The majority of participants (55/68, 81%) stated that they coped with stress better or in the same way after engaging in the stress test, due to time management, dialogue with others, and self-refection. A total of 4 out of 68 participants (6%)—3 female students (75%) and 1 male student (25%)—took part in telephone interviews. Three main themes were identified from the interview data: perceptions about stress, design features, and intervention features.

Conclusions:Stress was described by the students as a condition caused by high demands set by oneself and the social environment that impacted their physical health, personal relationships, school performance, and emotional well-being. Participants claimed that mHealth interventions need to be clearly tailored to a young age group, be evidence based, and offer varied types of support, such as information about stress, exercises to help organize tasks, self-assessment, coping tools, and recommendations of other useful websites, literature, blogs, self-help books, or role models. Mobile phones seemed to be a feasible and acceptable platform for the delivery of an intervention.

Background

Smoking among adolescents remains a global public health issue as youth continue to maintain high prevalence rates. The evidence for the efficacy of text messaging interventions to reduce smoking behavior is well established, yet there is still a need for studies targeting high school students. The aim of the study was to determine the effectiveness of a text-based smoking cessation intervention among high school students in Sweden.

Methods

The study was a two-arm randomized trial conducted from January 10 2018 to January 11 2019, data were analysed from April 12 2019 to May 21 2019. Inclusion criteria were high school students who were daily or weekly smokers willing to attempt to quit smoking and owned a mobile phone. The study invited all students at 630 high schools units throughout Sweden. The intervention group received text messages based on components of effective smoking cessation interventions for 12 weeks. The control group were offered treatment as usual. The primary outcomes were self-reported prolonged abstinence (not having smoked more than 5 cigarettes over the last 8 weeks) and 4-week point prevalence of smoking abstinence.

Findings

A total of 535 participants, with a median age of 17 (IQR 16–18), were randomized into the study; 276 (164 [59.4%] women) were allocated to the intervention and 259 (162 [62.5%] women) to the control group. The outcomes of the trial were analyzed on a total of 212 (76.8%) participants in the intervention group and 201 (77.6%) participants in the control group. Prolonged abstinence at the 3-month follow-up was reported by 49 (23.1%) individuals in the intervention group and 39 (19.4%) individuals in the control group (adjusted OR, 1.21; 95% CI, 0.73–2.01; P value, .46). Four-week point prevalence of complete smoking cessation was reported by 53 (25.0%) individuals in the intervention group and 31 (15.4%) individuals in the control group (adjusted OR, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.12–3.17; P value, .018).

Conclusions

Estimates of 4-week point prevalence of complete cessation was 10 percentage points higher in the group that were given access to the intervention compared to the control. Findings provide confirmation that text messaging-based smoking cessation programs can affect quit rates among adolescents.

Trial registration

ISRCTN15396225; registration date October 13, 2017, https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-018-3028-2.

Background: Clustering of multiple lifestyle risk behaviors has been associated with a greater risk of noncommunicable diseases and mortality than one lifestyle risk behavior or no lifestyle risk behaviors. The National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden reported in 2018 that it is important to provide additional support to individuals with multiple lifestyle risk behaviors, as risks from these behaviors are multiplicative rather than additive. However, the same report emphasized that there is a lack of knowledge regarding interventions that support changes to unhealthy lifestyle behaviors.

Objective: The MoBILE (Mobile health Multiple lifestyle Behavior Interventions across the LifEspan) research program has brought together two Swedish research groups supported by international collaborators. Through this collaboration, we aim to design and evaluate a number of novel and tailored mobile health (mHealth) multiple lifestyle behavior interventions across the life span of different health care populations. In addition, the MoBILE research program will extend ongoing research to include mHealth interventions for migrant pregnant women and children.

Methods: Each project within the MoBILE program will focus on a specific group: pregnant women, preschool children, high school and university students, and adults in primary and clinical care. All the projects will follow the same 4 phases: requirements, development, evaluation, and implementation. During the requirements phase, implementers and end users will aid the design of content and functionality of the interventions. In the development phase, findings from the first phase will be synthesized with expert domain knowledge and theoretical constructs to create interventions tailored to the target groups. The third phase, evaluation, will comprise randomized controlled trials conducted to estimate the effects of the interventions on multiple lifestyle risk behaviors (eg, alcohol, nutrition, physical activity, and smoking). The final phase will investigate how the interventions, if found effective, can be disseminated into different health care contexts.

Results: The research program commenced in 2019, and the first results will be available in 2020. Projects involving pregnant women, preschool children, and high school and university students will be completed in the first 3 years, with the remaining projects being planned for the program’s final 3 years.

Conclusions:The development of evidence-based digital tools is complex, as they should be guided by theoretical frameworks, and requires large interdisciplinary teams with competence in technology, behavioral science, and lifestyle-specific areas. Individual researchers or smaller research groups developing their own tools is not the way forward, as it means reinventing the wheel over and over again. The MoBILE research program therefore aims to join forces and learn from the past 10 years of mHealth research to maximize scientific outcomes, as well as the use of financial resources to expand the growing body of evidence for mHealth lifestyle behavior interventions.

Background: Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors such as insufficient physical activity, unhealthy diet, smoking, and harmful use of alcohol tend to cluster (ie, individuals may be at risk from more than one lifestyle behavior that can be established in early childhood and adolescence and track into adulthood). Previous research has underlined the potential of lifestyle interventions delivered via mobile phones. However, there is a need for deepened knowledge on how to design mobile health (mHealth) interventions taking end user views into consideration in order to optimize the overall usability of such interventions. Adolescents are early adopters of technology and frequent users of mobile phones, yet research on interventions that use mobile devices to deliver multiple lifestyle behavior changes targeting at-risk high school students is lacking.

Objective: This protocol describes a participatory design study with the aim of developing an mHealth lifestyle behavior intervention to promote healthy lifestyles among high school students.

Methods: Through an iterative process using participatory design, user requirements are investigated in terms of technical features and content. The procedures around the design and development of the intervention, including heuristic evaluations, focus group interviews, and usability tests, are described.

Results: Recruitment started in May 2019. Data collection, analysis, and scientific reporting from heuristic evaluations and usability tests are expected to be completed in November 2019. Focus group interviews were being undertaken with high school students from October through December, and full results are expected to be published in Spring 2020. A planned clinical trial will commence in Summer 2020. The study was funded by a grant from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare.

Conclusions: The study is expected to add knowledge on how to design an mHealth intervention taking end users’ views into consideration in order to develop a novel, evidence-based, low-cost, and scalable intervention that high school students want to use in order to achieve a healthier lifestyle.

Background: Tobacco smoking is the primary cause of preventable premature disease and death worldwide. Evidence of the efficacy of text messaging interventions to reduce smoking behavior is well established, but there is still a need for studies targeting young people, especially because young adult smokers are less likely to seek treatment than older adults. A mobile health intervention, Nicotine Exit (NEXit), targeting smoking among university students was developed to support university students to quit smoking. Short-term effectiveness was measured through a randomized controlled trial, which found that immediately after the 12-week intervention, 26% of smokers in the intervention group had prolonged abstinence compared with 15% in the control group.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the experience of being allocated to the control group in the NEXit smoking cessation intervention.

Methods: We asked students who were allocated to the control group in the main NEXit randomized controlled trial to report their experiences. An email was sent to the participants with an electronic link to a short questionnaire. We assessed the distribution of the responses to the questionnaire by descriptive analysis. We analyzed free-text comments to 4 questions.

Results: The response rate for the questionnaire was 33.8% (258/763), and we collected 143 free-text comments. Of the responders, 60.9% (157/258) experienced frustration, disappointment, and irritation about being allocated to the control group; they felt they were being denied support by having to wait for the intervention. Monthly text messages during the waiting period thanking them for taking part in the trial were perceived as negative by 72.3% (189/258), but for some the messages served as a reminder about the decision to quit smoking. Of the responders, 61.2% (158/258) chose to wait to quit smoking until they had access to the intervention, and 29.8% (77/258) decided to try to quit smoking without support. Of the respondents, 77.5% (200/258) claimed they were still smoking and had signed up or were thinking about signing up for the smoking cessation program at the time of the questionnaire.

Conclusions: Most of the respondents reported negative feelings about having to wait for the support of the intervention and that they had decided to continue smoking. A similar number decided to wait to quit smoking until they had access to the intervention, and these respondents reported a high interest in the intervention. Free-text comments indicated that some control group participants believed that they had been excluded from the trial, while others were confused when asked to sign up for the intervention again.

BACKGROUND: Heavy consumption of alcohol among university students is a global problem, with excessive drinking being the social norm. Students can be a difficult target group to reach, and only a minority seek alcohol-related support. It is important to develop interventions that can reach university students in a way that does not further stretch the resources of the health services. Text messaging (short message service, SMS)-based interventions can enable continuous, real-time, cost-effective, brief support in a real-world setting, but there is a limited amount of evidence for effective interventions on alcohol consumption among young people based on text messaging. To address this, a text messaging-based alcohol consumption intervention, the Amadeus 3 intervention, was developed.

OBJECTIVE: This study explored self-reported changes in drinking habits in an intervention group and a control group. Additionally, user satisfaction among the intervention group and the experience of being allocated to a control group were explored.

METHODS: Students allocated to the intervention group (n=460) were asked about their drinking habits and offered the opportunity to give their opinion on the structure and content of the intervention. Students in the control group (n=436) were asked about their drinking habits and their experience in being allocated to the control group. Participants received an email containing an electronic link to a short questionnaire. Descriptive analyses of the distribution of the responses to the 12 questions for the intervention group and 5 questions for the control group were performed.

RESULTS: The response rate for the user feedback questionnaire of the intervention group was 38% (176/460) and of the control group was 30% (129/436). The variation in the content of the text messages from facts to motivational and practical advice was appreciated by 77% (135/176) participants, and 55% (97/176) found the number of messages per week to be adequate. Overall, 81% (142/176) participants stated that they had read all or nearly all the messages, and 52% (91/176) participants stated that they were drinking less, and increased awareness regarding negative consequences was expressed as the main reason for reduced alcohol consumption. Among the participants in the control group, 40% (52/129) stated that it did not matter that they had to wait for access to the intervention. Regarding actions taken while waiting for access, 48% (62/129) participants claimed that they continued to drink as before, whereas 35% (45/129) tried to reduce their consumption without any support.

CONCLUSIONS: Although the main randomized controlled trial was not able to detect a statistically significant effect of the intervention, most participants in this qualitative follow-up study stated that participation in the study helped them reflect upon their consumption, leading to altered drinking habits and reduced alcohol consumption.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number ISRCTN95054707; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN95054707 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/705putNZT).