The purpose of this paper is to describe the utilization of smart phones for motivational calls to motivate midlife South Asian Indian immigrant women to incorporate structured brisk walking into their daily lifestyle and to increase their lifestyle physical activity.
Methods:
An interventional research design with biweekly motivational phone calls and text messages, was used for 12 weeks of the study. The study was guided by the Physical Activity Behavior Framework for South Asian Indian Immigrants, which is based on social cognitive theory. Inclusion criteria were South Asian Indian Immigrant women born in India, 40 to 65 years of age, sedentary lifestyle, owned a smart phone, had sent or received text messages, and had no physical activity disability that would interfere with walking. A sample of 25 women were recruited through South Asian Indian SAI faith- and non-faith-based community organizations and SAI businesses. Purposeful and snowball sampling were used. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the affiliated university. A South Asian Indian immigrant bilingual researcher made the motivational phone calls and sent the text messages every two weeks over 12 weeks. A motivational-calls script was used to guide the phone calls. Participants wore downloadable HJ323 pedometers for daily step count measurement and used weekly walking logs to track the number of minutes spent per week on brisk walking. Data on daily steps and the number of minutes spent per week on brisk walking was collected at baseline, 12 weeks, 18 weeks and 24 weeks. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, means, and standard deviations) were calculated.
Results:
The median age of the 40 participants was 50 years (M= 51, SD=7.0); the majority immigrated from either the northern (n=16, 40%) or southern (n=16, 40%) regions of India. The time since immigration to the United States varied from 2 to 30 or more years. Participants were predominantly married (n=38, 95%) with their average household size of 4.3 (SD= 1.25) adult and child members. The mean score for global health (M=3.9) indicated moderately good health. Approximately 13% of participants had hypertension (> 140/90). The mean BMI (M=27.6) was in the overweight range (25-29.9). The mean waist circumference was 33.3. Step counts progressively increased overtime. Overall increase in average daily step counts from baseline to 24 weeks was 6900 steps. Overall increase in number of minutes spent per week on brisk walking from 41 minutes at baseline to 158 minutes at 24 weeks.
Conclusion:
Utilization of smart phones for motivational calls and text messages is an effective innovative strategy for promoting enhanced lifestyle physical activity in midlife South Asian Indian immigrant women. This motivational strategy does not only help midlife South Asian Indian immigrant women with behavior modification to increase their average daily step counts but also to increase the number of minutes spent per week for brisk walking. Meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines with structured brisk walking of at least 150 minutes per week, would further help in reducing the morbidity and mortality risk related to inadequate physical activity status, cardiovascular disease and diabetes in these at-risk midlife South Asian Indian immigrant women.
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