BACKGROUND

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions offer a promising way to support healthy lifestyle habits, but effectiveness depends on user engagement. Maintaining high user engagement in app-based interventions is important, yet challenging.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to examine the association between user engagement with an app-based dietary education for people with type 2 diabetes and changes in diet quality, dietary intake, and clinical measures.

METHODS

In this randomized clinical trial, people with type 2 diabetes were recruited within primary care and randomized 1:1 to a 12-week smartphone-delivered app-based dietary education or control group. Participants were followed up after 3, 6, and 12 months. Dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire. The control group received the app at the 3-month follow-up. User engagement was analyzed among all participants. Categories of high (100%), moderate (50%-99.9%), and low (<50%) user engagement were created based on the percentage of activities completed in the app. We used paired t tests to compare mean changes in diet quality, dietary intake, and clinical markers within user engagement groups, and fitted linear regression models to analyze differences in change between groups.

RESULTS

Data from 119 participants (60.5%, 72/119 men) were analyzed. The mean age at baseline was 63.2 (SD 10.3) years and mean BMI was 30.1 (SD 5.1) kg/m2. User engagement was high with an average of 77.1% of app activities completed. More than half (53.8%, 64/119) of the users showed high user engagement, 21.8% (26/119) moderate, and 24.4% (29/119) low. Directly following the app-based education, a significant difference in change was seen for whole grains (β=20.4, 95%CI 0.57-40.3) in participants with high user engagement compared to the low user engagement group who decreased their intake (P=.03). At follow-up after 6 to 9 months after completed education, significant differences in change were seen for fiber, wholegrains, carbohydrates, saturated fat, sodium, and total energy in the moderate compared with the low engagement group, and a significant difference in change was seen for carbohydrates in the high, compared with the low, user engagement group.

CONCLUSIONS

User engagement was generally high for the smartphone-based dietary education, suggesting that an app targeting dietary habits is feasible to use. Those with higher user engagement seem to maintain healthier dietary behaviours over time, compared to those with low user engagement. Future mHealth interventions should focus on ways to engage those with low interest.