Short message service reduces dropout in childhood obesity treatment: a randomized controlled trial.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2012-11-15
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Lifestyle programs can reduce the level of overweight in children however maintenance results and adherence to treatment are difficult to achieve New technologies such as the Short Message Service SMS might be a promising tool for enhancing interventions The effect of an SMS approach aimed at improving treatment results and reducing dropout rates in a pediatric lifestyle intervention is explored METHOD Overweight and obese children N 141 age 7 12 years participating in a lifestyle program were randomly assigned to an intervention group receiving an SMS Maintenance Treatment SMSMT for 38 weeks n 73 or to a control group receiving no SMSMT n 68 Children were asked to send weekly self monitoring data on exercise eating behavior and emotional well being In return they received tailored feedback messages A differential decrease in BMI was analyzed with repeated measures ANOVA and dropout with logistic regression analysis RESULTS We found no significant difference in BMI decrease between the two groups after 12 months however we showed that the SMSMT group had 3 25 times less probability of dropping out after 1 year p 01 than controls In the first 3 months of SMSMT the SMSMT completers sent 0 80 SMSs per week which reduced to 0 50 SMSs in the final 3 months Younger children sent more SMSs p 03 CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that SMSMT is effective in reducing dropout rates from a pediatric lifestyle intervention Future research should examine the effectiveness of SMSMT on weight management and related psychosocial variables