P-STEP Pilot v 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Usability and Acceptance of the P-STEP Mobile App: A Pilot Study
IRAS ID
318720
Contact name
André Ng
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leicester Research & Enterprise Division Research Governance Office
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Research Summary:
The P-STEP app is designed to help participants plan and monitor walking activities, while delivering up-to-date information on environmental factors, such as pollution levels. This means that while planning outdoor walks, participants can avoid highly polluted areas to minimise their exposure to pollution. The app is designed to be used by everyone, however it will particularly help those with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, where being exposed to high levels of pollution can lead to worsening symptoms, such as breathlessness. The app encourages walking purposefully for exercise, at a brisk pace if possible. A brisk walking pace is a faster walking pace in order to increase the heart rate.
The purpose of this study is to recruit participants to pilot the app for 12 weeks and collect questionnaire data about the usability and acceptance of the app during this time. The main questions are about the usability of the app, which is how well the app does what it has been designed to do. We will recruit a maximum of 380 participants to pilot the app over 12 weeks and ask them for their opinions and feedback about their time using the app. We will also collect usage data from the app. However usage data cannot be linked to participants and is only to provide an overall summary of usage levels.
Summary of Results:
Introduction - The P-STEP app was designed to help participants plan and monitor walking activities while giving them up-to-date information about their environment, such as pollution levels, pollen and weather. Whilst planning outdoor walks, the aim was that participants could avoid highly polluted areas to minimise their exposure to pollution. The app was designed to be used by everyone. However, it was thought it would particularly help those with respiratory (lung and airways) and cardiovascular (heart and circulation) conditions, where being exposed to high levels of pollution could lead to their symptoms getting worse, such as breathlessness. The app encouraged people to walk purposefully for exercise, and at a brisk pace if it was possible. A brisk walking pace is a faster walking pace to increase the heart rate.Methods -The purpose of this pilot study was to recruit participants with long term health conditions to test the app for 12 weeks and collect questionnaire data about the usability and acceptance of the app during this time. We also collected data on engagement with the app, and quality of life. The main questions asked were about the usability of the app, which is how well the app does what it has been designed to do.
Participants were recruited from an existing group of participants from another study, who had agreed that they could be contacted for future research. The aim was to recruit a maximum of 380 participants to test the app on their Android smartphones over 12 weeks, and ask them for their opinions and feedback about their time using the app. We also collected usage data from the app, for example, how many users logged into the app. However, it was not possible to link the usage data back to participants, as the data was just an overall summary of usage levels.
Results - Results are available at the following URL: https://rdcu.be/eLwBj
Conclusion - The conclusion will be updated once the final results paper has been published.
REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/SW/0060
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jun 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion