Breaking up Sitting With a Treadmill Desk in Office Workers

NCT ID: NCT03468894

Last Updated: 2019-04-18

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: WITHDRAWN
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2018-03-22
• Study Completion Date: 2018-10-30

Brief Summary

Sitting for long uninterrupted periods of time can increase risk of heart disease, diabetes and early death, even if you take part in the United Kingdom government guidelines for physical activity of 21/2 hours per week of exercise. Effective interventions to reduce the risk of these diseases are therefore needed. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of regularly breaking up sitting time with light intensity treadmill desk walking among office workers on health markers, sitting time and physical activity. If using a treadmill desk leads to benefits in these disease risk markers then this could be an effective strategy to improve employee health in the workplace.

Participants will be randomly assigned to the intervention group or the control group. After baseline activity and health measures, they will take part in the study for 4 weeks.

Intervention group: Participants will have a treadmill desk placed in their office or a nearby location and will be asked to walk while working on the treadmill desk continuously for 20 minutes at a self-selected slow pace each hour for a minimum of 6 hours per shift. There will be one treadmill desk between 2-3 people.

Control group: Participants will be asked to work as usual at their regular workstation with no changes in their physical activity and dietary habits.

Sitting time and physical activity will be measured at baseline and during the last week f the intervention. A range of health and psychological measures will be taken at baseline and post-intervention.

Conditions

Cardiovascular Risk Factor; Type2 Diabetes; Sedentary Lifestyle

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: PREVENTION
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Control

The control group will continue to work as usual at their regular workstations.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Intervention

A shared treadmill workstation will be installed in participating offices, or in a nearby location in case there is no space to fit the workstation in the office, enrolled to this group. Within the intervention group there will be a maximum allocation of two participants per treadmill desk. The participants in the intervention group will be asked to interrupt their sitting with 20 minutes of self-selected light-intensity walking at a speed of 1-4 km/h each hour for a minimum of 6 hours per shift to accumulate a total of 2 hours of light-intensity activity per work day.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Treadmill desk walking

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

See intervention arm description

Interventions

Treadmill desk walking

See intervention arm description

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• adults aged 18-65 years who work for shifts lasting ≥ 6 h and spend ≥ 75% of this time sitting at their desk
• work a minimum of 3 days per week

Exclusion Criteria

• the presence of any known blood borne disease
• self-reported diagnosed diabetes
• physical activity contraindications
• pregnancy
• any major injury or illness, tobacco use, or any other health issue that my limit the participant in carrying out the required activity bouts.
• any planned absence from their office for more than one week during the 4 week study period.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 65 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Bedfordshire

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Daniel Bailey

Senior Lecturer in Health, Nutrition and Exercise

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Other Identifiers

Not yet available

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id