A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Medicine
Johannesburg, 2018. / There has been an increase in the percentage of individuals employed in sedentary
occupations over the last 50 years. Prolonged sedentary time has been associated with
poorer cardiometabolic health. Interrupting prolonged sedentary activity may
attenuate the risk of developing cardiometabolic disease. This study aimed to
determine whether prompts delivered via a mobile phone were effective in reducing
sedentary behaviour (measured objectively using an Actigraph and activPAL
accelerometer) in people with sedentary occupations. Twenty men and women were
randomly assigned to either a control or intervention (PROMPT) group. Only
participants in the PROMPT group were instructed to interrupt their sedentary
behaviour. During the intervention participants in the PROMPT group spent less time
in sedentary behaviour (5.5±0.5 hrs/day) during their working day, compared to the
control group (6.7±0.6 hrs/day) as measured using the activPAL (p=0.04). There was
no association between the intervention and cardiometabolic health variables. There
were differences in the outputs of ActiGraph and activPAL accelerometers.
Interrupting prolonged sedentary time via mobile phone messages may be an
effective strategy in reducing total sedentary time in the workplace. / LG2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/25380 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Dunning, Jason Robert |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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