There has been an increased occurrence of bariatric surgery procedures however ultimately individuals are required to make individual-level behaviour changes for weight maintenance. A scalable solution for the delivery of an intervention to support individual-level behaviour change is mHealth. Participants were recruited from a Queensland Australia, tertiary hospital, bariatric surgery health service. The treatment group received a technology enhanced model of care as an adjunct to usual care and a historical control group served as a comparator. The mHealth intervention was designed using the social cognitive theory, behaviour change technique taxonomy, and has a patient centred focus. It included text-messages, an email newsletter and access to a website which had information, resources, and a series of videos. A mixed methods design was used for this pilot study, whereby qualitative data on the patient experiences were embedded within quantitative data to determine the feasibility and acceptability of mHealth in adults undergoing bariatric surgery.
Charlene Wright is the lead researcher on the project as it forms part of her PhD and is working in collaboration with dietitians from the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
Lead Researcher
Charlene Wright