WhatsApp-Based Intervention for Promoting Physical Activity Among Female College Students, Saudi Arabia: A Randomized Controlled Trial
WhatsApp-Based Intervention for Promoting Physical Activity Among Female College Students, Saudi Arabia: A Randomized Controlled Trial
The purpose of this research will be to determine the efficacy and applicability of using WhatsApp-based intervention for physical activity promotion in female college students.
In the recent past, adoption of social media as a way of daily communication has been on the rise. For instance, according to Ventiola the healthcare sector has many social media tools including networking platforms, Wikis, blogs, media sharing sites, and virtual reality and gaming sites . These tools are necessary for improving the practice of healthcare workforce by promoting real time interaction, patient education, as well as public health education. However, the social media tools also present potential risk to patients including breach of patient information safety and also extension of professional boundaries to personal levels . However, as a revolutionary communication tool, social media has enhanced patient-practitioner relationship by ensuring that the two connect even outside the healthcare environment. Therefore, the application of social media in healthcare management and dissemination of services is not by accident, but rather, a timely invention that will see the improvement of health standards globally if well implemented.
It is essential to first understand the meaning of social media before any of its application in promoting client-practitioner relationship is discussed. It is even more necessary when the issue is related to healthcare management since the dissemination of healthcare services is a critical affair. According to Kaplan and Michael social media is "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 which allows the creation and exchange of User Generated Content." However, the new perspective should not make researchers drool on the fact that social media is Web 2.0 based; rather, the meaning of social media must be expanded to include both online and offline social activities. Thus, social media can be considered as a versatile communication tool that allows for interactive communication based on personal experiences that aim at influencing the actions of each other .
Based on that context, it is imperative to note that the use of social media in healthcare management is not so common due to myriad factors that cannot be expressly identified. However, it is understandable that social media and its level of sophistication today, is ripe for social support in any human engagement. Thus, due to its versatility, reach and functionality, social media now qualifies as the most promising online support tool with minimum resource uptake. Most importantly, the recent studies indicate that social media has succeeded elsewhere in helping certain individuals meet their social and health goals thus making the subject worth a more profiled review. Physical activity is now a well-established element of the public health agenda. today's university students are our future social opinion leaders and policy makers and as such, their habits, beliefs and attitudes will be influential in shaping community norms and values. In addition, as a group, they are spending considerable time in a setting that promotes sedentary behavior (particularly computer and Internet use) and are largely being educated for sedentary occupations .
Adherence to physical activity (PA) leads to improvements in physical function and quality of life . The adherence is one of the most important factors in order to get the desired benefits of PA. The role of the PA has been well- discussed in several studies and found to aid prevention of many health disorders, such as cardiovascular diseases and obesity . Regular exercise, in particular, helps protect against debilitating and costly chronic conditions as well and to achieve the optimum level of quality of life . Adherence to PA must be improved in order to improve health prospects. The adherence to the PA has been found to be extremely low in the Saudi population, particularly among young females . This poor adherence could be attributable to lack of knowledge about the benefits of exercise or even many related social and personal factors as well as cultural factors . The dangers of physical inactivity have been outlined in many studies as it is one of the most important public health problems of the 21st century . For example, physically inactive middle-aged women (performed less than 1 hour of exercise per week) experienced 52% increased all-cause mortality, a doubling of cardiovascular related mortality and 29% increased cancer-related mortality compared with the physically active women . Motivation for PA could be defined as the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to the initiation and the maintenance of a PA program or any type of exercise (10). Intrinsically motivated behaviors are those performed for satisfaction one gains from engaging in the activity itself. By contrast, extrinsically motivated behaviors are those performed in order to get rewards or results that are separate from the behavior itself . There are many different ways that have been used to increase the adherence level to the PA and the home exercise programs are an effective motivational way . Previous studies reported positive effect of using electronic media and mobile phone applications to enhance motivation in improving adherence among participants . Fukuoka et al. investigated the use of mobile phone based intervention to improve physical activity in sedentary women. They concluded that the mobile phone based intervention seems to motivate inactive women to improve their physical activity. Another study reported significant effects of Internet and mobile phone based motivation to improve the level of physical activity in healthy adults . In addition, Turner-McGreevy et al. reported some potential benefits of mobile phone monitoring methods during weight reduction intervention in overweight adults . The present study aimed primarily to evaluate the efficacy of using social media "WhatsApp application" as a motivational stimulus in improving Physical Activity levels among Saudi female college students in Abha city.
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