Willinger Laura, Böhm Birgit, Schweizer Florian, Reimer Lara Marie, Jonas Stephan, Scheller Daniel A, Oberhoffer-Fritz Renate, Müller Jan
Chair of Preventive Pediatrics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
JMIR Res Protoc. 2024 May 3;13:e55156. doi: 10.2196/55156.
The prevalence of physical inactivity among children and adolescents is alarmingly high despite the well-documented and comprehensive benefits of regular physical activity (PA). Therefore, PA promotion should start early in childhood and adolescence. Although reducing recreational screen time in children and adolescents is an urgent concern, digital approaches have the potential to make activity promotion attractive and age appropriate for the target group. KIJANI is a mobile app approach to promote PA in children and adolescents via gamification and augmented reality.
This study protocol aims to describe the KIJANI intervention in detail, as well as the evaluation approach.
KIJANI is based on the concept that virtual coins can be earned through PA, for example, in the form of a collected step count. With these coins, in turn, blocks can be bought, which can be used to create virtual buildings and integrate them into the player's real-world environment via augmented reality. PA of users is detected via accelerometers integrated into the smartphones. KIJANI can be played at predefined play locations that were comprehensively identified as safe, child-friendly, and attractive for PA by the target group in a partner project. The evaluation process will be divided into 2 different stages. The phase-I evaluation will be a mixed methods approach with one-on-one semistructured interviews and questionnaires to evaluate the user experience and receive feedback from the target group. After the implementation of results and feedback from the target group, the phase-II evaluation will proceed in the form of a 2-arm randomized controlled trial, in which the effectiveness of KIJANI will be assessed via objectively measured PA as well as questionnaires.
The study received ethical approval from the ethical board of the Technical University of Munich. Participants for the phase-I evaluation are currently being recruited.
The study will help to determine the efficacy, applicability, and user experience of a gamified activity promotion application in children and adolescents. Overall, digital health approaches provide easy and wide reachability at low cost and are age appropriate and attractive for the target group of adolescents. Strategies have to be developed to apply digital health approaches in the best possible way for activity promotion.
INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/55156.
尽管有充分记录的定期体育活动（PA）的全面益处，但儿童和青少年身体活动不足的患病率高得惊人。因此，体育活动促进应在儿童期和青少年期尽早开始。虽然减少儿童和青少年的娱乐屏幕时间是一个紧迫问题，但数字方法有可能使活动促进对目标群体具有吸引力且适合其年龄。KIJANI是一种通过游戏化和增强现实来促进儿童和青少年体育活动的移动应用程序方法。
本研究方案旨在详细描述KIJANI干预措施以及评估方法。
KIJANI基于这样一种概念，即可以通过体育活动赚取虚拟硬币，例如以收集的步数形式。反过来，用这些硬币可以购买积木，这些积木可用于创建虚拟建筑，并通过增强现实将其整合到玩家的现实世界环境中。通过集成到智能手机中的加速度计检测用户的体育活动。KIJANI可以在预定义的游戏地点玩，在一个合作项目中，目标群体已全面确定这些地点对体育活动来说是安全、适合儿童且有吸引力的。评估过程将分为两个不同阶段。第一阶段评估将采用混合方法，通过一对一的半结构化访谈和问卷调查来评估用户体验并从目标群体获得反馈。在实施目标群体提出的结果和反馈后，第二阶段评估将以双臂随机对照试验的形式进行，其中将通过客观测量体育活动以及问卷调查来评估KIJANI的有效性。
该研究获得了慕尼黑工业大学伦理委员会的伦理批准。目前正在招募第一阶段评估的参与者。
该研究将有助于确定一款针对儿童和青少年的游戏化活动促进应用程序的功效、适用性和用户体验。总体而言，数字健康方法以低成本提供了便捷且广泛的可及性，并且适合目标群体青少年的年龄且具有吸引力。必须制定策略以尽可能最佳的方式应用数字健康方法来促进活动。
国际注册报告识别码（IRRID）：DERR1-10.2196/55156
