Physical activity interventions: Efficiency of digital applications

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of digital interventions in increasing the level of physical activity. Materials and methods: Studies on the effects of digital interventions on physical activity levels in the literature were examined in detail and a "Comprehensive Digital Intervention Model" was designed. In order to examine the effects of the created model, a project with the code name "More Active and More Healthy" was created, where healthy habits were acquired. For the implementation of the experiment, the interventions produced based on our model were delivered to the participants as a notification or an in-app message via the mobile application called "Pacer". The experimental group was 190 people (129 women with an average age of 31.28 ± 10.47, 61 men with an average age of 31.64 ± 12.10), the control group was twelve (137 women with an average age of 24 ± 8.55, 55 men with an average age of 36.29 ± 9.11). Daily step counts were collected through the mobile application using a special proxy server. The data obtained in a transfer format built on the Java Script infrastructure were prepared by a special software developed by the team. In his analysis; The t-test and one-way ANOVA test were used and the arithmetic mean (x̄), standard deviation (s.s), frequency (f), percentage (%) values were calculated. Results: Based on the comprehensive digital intervention model, it was observed that the experimental group (15,351.81) and the control group (12,154.69) contributed to the physical activity level of the experimental group according to the average number of steps per person per week. It has been observed that the measures taken with the corona epidemic caused the daily step count to decrease dramatically. Conclusion: It has been determined that digital interventions using the this study model designed are efficient to increase the number of daily steps. Key words: Digital Interventions, Physical Activity, Self-Determination, Social Media, Gamification