Children’s compliance with wrist worn accelerometry within a cluster randomised controlled trial: Findings from The Healthy Lifestyles Programme

Abstract

Purpose: To assess children’s compliance with wrist worn accelerometry during a randomised control trial and to examine whether compliance differed by allocated condition or gender. Method: 886 children within the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP) trial were randomly allocated to wear a GENEActiv accelerometer at baseline and 18 month follow up. Compliance with minimum wear time criteria (≥10 hours for 3 week, 1 weekend day) was obtained for both time points. Chi- squared tests were used to determine associations between compliance, group allocation and gender. Results: At baseline, 851 children had useable data, 830 (97.5%) met the minimum wear time criteria, 631 (74.1%) had data for 7 days at 24 hours/day. At follow up, 789 children had useable data, 745 (94.4%) met the minimum wear time criteria, 528 (67%) children had complete data. Compliance did not differ by gender (baseline; X2 = 1.66, p = 0.2, follow up; X2 = 0.76, p = 0.4) or by group at follow up (X2 = 2.35, p = 0.13). Conclusion: The use of wrist worn accelerometers and robust trial procedures resulted in high compliance at two time points regardless of group allocation, demonstrating the feasibility of usingprecise physical activity monitors to measure intervention effectiveness.