Effect of a Nine-Month Web- and App-Based Workplace Intervention to Promote Healthy Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Employees in the Social Welfare and Health Care Sector: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: General health promoting campaigns are often not targeted at the people who need them the most. Web- and app-based tools are a new way to reach, motivate, and help people with poor health status. Objective: The aim of our study was to test a Web- and mobile app-based tool("SoSu-life") on employees in the social welfare and health care sector in Denmark. Methods: A randomized controlled trial was carried out as a workplace intervention. The tool was designed to help users make healthy lifestyle changes such as losing weight, exercise more, and quit smoking. A team competition between the participating workplaces took place during the first 16 weeks of the intervention. Twenty nursing homes for elderly people in 6 municipalities in Denmark participated in the study. The employees at the nursing homes were randomized either 1: 1 or 2: 1 on a municipality level to use the SoSu-life tool or to serve as a control group with no intervention. All participants underwent baseline measurements including body weight, waist circumference, body fat percentage, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol level and they filled in a questionnaire covering various aspects of health. The participants were measured again after 16 and 38 weeks. Results: A total of 566 (SoSu-life: n = 355, control: n = 211) participants were included in the study. At 16 weeks there were 369 participants still in the study (SoSu-life: n = 227, control: n = 142) and 269 participants completed the 38 week intervention (SoSu-life: n = 152, control: n = 117). At 38 weeks, the SoSu-life group had a larger decrease in body weight (-1.01 kg, P =. 03), body fat percentage (-0.8%, P =. 03), and waist circumference (-1.8 cm, P =. 007) compared with the control group. Conclusions: The SoSu-life Web- and app-based tool had a modest yet beneficial effect on body weight and body fat percentage in the health care sector staff.