ImpulsePal: A Feasibility Study V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
ImpulsePal: A feasibility study to aid the planning of a randomised controlled trial and refinement of a smartphone app-based intervention to support weight loss
IRAS ID
177205
Contact name
Samantha van Beurden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Exeter
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Obesity continues to be a growing burden to society and healthcare providers. It increases the risk of chronic health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases. Weight loss can greatly reduce the risk of such health problems. Interventions to promote weight loss are available. However, people often struggle to lose weight, despite strong intentions to do so. This is thought to be due, at least to food choices occur impulsively with little conscious awareness.
Based on the views of people struggling with weight management, behaviour change experts, and published research we have developed an intervention to help individuals develop skills to modify the influence of impulses or “food cravings” on their eating behaviour.
ImpulsePal focuses on training people to identify when (and where) cravings are likely to occur and to use several techniques to gain more control over them.
In this study, we will recruit 90 people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30kg/m2 or more.The purposes of the study are a) to develop and refine our intervention n) to test the feasibility of delivering this intervention alongside several existing weight loss programmes and c) to evaluate recruitment, retention, and other procedures that will be used in a future randomised controlled trial of the intervention.
People who agree to take part will be allocated (at random) to one of two groups (an intervention and a control group). We will measure changes in body weight and other outcomes of interest at 1, 3, 6, and 12months after the initial ‘baseline’ visit at the start of the study. Participants will be interviewed about their experiences of using the ImpulsePal app as well as their experiences of the research procedures. This will help us make both the intervention itself, and the planned future trial, more acceptable or more effective.
REC name
South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SW/0181
Date of REC Opinion
16 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion