Effects of an “Active-Workstation” Cluster RCT on Daily Waking Physical Behaviors

Arguello, Diego; Thorndike, Anne N.; Cloutier, Gregory; Morton, Alvin L.; Castaneda‐Sceppa, Carmen; John, Dinesh

doi:10.1249/mss.0000000000002594

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Active workstations such as sit-to-stand desks, cycling desks, and treadmill desks can be used to improve health outcomes for employees who work in seated desk jobs by reducing sedentary behavior and increasing engagement in light physical activity. In a recent randomized-controlled trial examining the long-term effects of active workstations, employees using a treadmill desk engaged in fewer daily sedentary bouts at the workplace when compared to a sit-to-stand desk group and a control group at 12 months (Arguello et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, reviews of the active workstation literature have revealed that treadmill desks increase energy expenditure more than other types of active workstations (Tudor-Locke et al, 2014 ) and are associated with greater physiological benefits than a standing desk (MacEwen et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Benefits Of Treadmill Desk Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Been a Game Changer”: Examining Treadmill Desk Use When Working from Home

et al. 2023

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Previous research has established the physical and mental benefits of using active workstations like treadmill desks in the workplace, such as reducing sedentary behavior and improving mood. However, treadmill desk use when working at home has not been examined despite significant increases in working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to be the first to describe how treadmill desks are used when working from home and (2) to describe perceived benefits, motivators, and barriers for treadmill desk use when working from home. Twenty participants who worked from home and used a treadmill desk were interviewed between February 2022 and April 2022. Participants reported using their treadmill desks while completing a variety of work and non-work tasks and experienced physical, mental, social, and work-related perceived benefits. Motivators for use included desires to reduce prolonged sitting and be more active, wanting to be healthier and fitter, tracking and reaching goals like daily step counts, feeling good during use, and to overcome increased sedentary behavior due to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Barriers to use included the type of work being done, physical limitations, accessibility issues, social concerns, and mental barriers. Future research should investigate ways to increase treadmill desk use at home by capitalizing on motivating factors and reducing barriers to use. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41542-023-00144-0.

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Section: Benefits Of Treadmill Desk Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Been a Game Changer”: Examining Treadmill Desk Use When Working from Home

et al. 2023

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“…This was a multicomponent intervention to decrease sedentary behavior in the workplace and comprised organizational, environmental, and individual-level strategies to target behavior change at both the individual and cluster levels [ 22 ]. The enrolled participants received initial face-to-face counseling sessions on the benefits of sitting less, standing, and moving more.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it is unclear whether active workstations reduce sitting in an all-or-none fashion, similar to that of exercise participation behavior, or whether they produce regular breaks from sitting throughout the day. Current knowledge on how active workstations alter physical behavior patterns consists of only a select number of metrics, such as usual or mean sedentary bout durations, selected duration stratifications of prolonged sedentary bouts (ie, >30 min), the number of sit-to-upright transitions or breaks from sedentary behavior, or the number of daily bouts of various physical behaviors [ 22 , 24 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 36 , 37 ]. Previously, we reported that our sit-to-stand and treadmill desk trial resulted in short-term improvements in standing (ie, 62-74 min/day) and stepping volume (ie, 41-49 min/day), with a pattern effect of treadmill desk users engaging in fewer daily sedentary bouts, whereas sit-to-stand desk users transitioned more frequently to upright physical behaviors [ 22 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Current knowledge on how active workstations alter physical behavior patterns consists of only a select number of metrics, such as usual or mean sedentary bout durations, selected duration stratifications of prolonged sedentary bouts (ie, >30 min), the number of sit-to-upright transitions or breaks from sedentary behavior, or the number of daily bouts of various physical behaviors [ 22 , 24 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 36 , 37 ]. Previously, we reported that our sit-to-stand and treadmill desk trial resulted in short-term improvements in standing (ie, 62-74 min/day) and stepping volume (ie, 41-49 min/day), with a pattern effect of treadmill desk users engaging in fewer daily sedentary bouts, whereas sit-to-stand desk users transitioned more frequently to upright physical behaviors [ 22 ]. As these data were collected using wearable sensors, they can be further examined at a level of granularity, which enables the study of the full spectrum of how sedentary, standing, and stepping bout patterns are altered by desk-based sedentary behavior interventions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impact of Sit-to-Stand and Treadmill Desks on Patterns of Daily Waking Physical Behaviors Among Overweight and Obese Seated Office Workers: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Arguello¹,

Cloutier²,

Thorndike³

et al. 2023

J Med Internet Res

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Background Sit-to-stand and treadmill desks may help sedentary office workers meet the physical activity guideline to “move more and sit less,” but little is known about their long-term impact on altering the accumulation patterns of physical behaviors. Objective This study explores the impact of sit-to-stand and treadmill desks on physical behavior accumulation patterns during a 12-month multicomponent intervention with an intent-to-treat design in overweight and obese seated office workers. Methods In total, 66 office workers were cluster randomized into a seated desk control (n=21, 32%; 8 clusters), sit-to-stand desk (n=23, 35%; 9 clusters), or treadmill desk (n=22, 33%; 7 clusters) group. Participants wore an activPAL (PAL Technologies Ltd) accelerometer for 7 days at baseline, 3-month follow-up (M3), 6-month follow-up (M6), and 12-month follow-up (M12) and received periodic feedback on their physical behaviors. Analyses of physical behavior patterns included total day and workday number of sedentary, standing, and stepping bouts categorized into durations ranging from 1 to 60 and >60 minutes and usual sedentary, standing, and stepping bout durations. Intervention trends were analyzed using random-intercept mixed linear models accounting for repeated measures and clustering effects. Results The treadmill desk group favored prolonged sedentary bouts (>60 min), whereas the sit-to-stand desk group accrued more short-duration sedentary bouts (<20 min). Therefore, compared with controls, sit-to-stand desk users had shorter usual sedentary bout durations short-term (total day ΔM3: −10.1 min/bout, 95% CI −17.9 to −2.2; P=.01; workday ΔM3: −20.3 min/bout, 95% CI −37.7 to −2.9; P=.02), whereas treadmill desk users had longer usual sedentary bout durations long-term (total day ΔM12: 9.0 min/bout, 95% CI 1.6-16.4; P=.02). The treadmill desk group favored prolonged standing bouts (30-60 min and >60 min), whereas the sit-to-stand desk group accrued more short-duration standing bouts (<20 min). As such, relative to controls, treadmill desk users had longer usual standing bout durations short-term (total day ΔM3: 6.9 min/bout, 95% CI 2.5-11.4; P=.002; workday ΔM3: 8.9 min/bout, 95% CI 2.1-15.7; P=.01) and sustained this long-term (total day ΔM12: 4.5 min/bout, 95% CI 0.7-8.4; P=.02; workday ΔM12: 5.8 min/bout, 95% CI 0.9-10.6; P=.02), whereas sit-to-stand desk users showed this trend only in the long-term (total day ΔM12: 4.2 min/bout, 95% CI 0.1-8.3; P=.046). The treadmill desk group accumulated more stepping bouts across various bins of duration (5-50 min), primarily at M3. Thus, treadmill desk users had longer usual stepping bout durations in the short-term compared with controls (workday ΔM3: 4.8 min/bout, 95% CI 1.3-8.3; P=.007) and in the short- and long-term compared with sit-to-stand desk users (workday ΔM3: 4.7 min/bout, 95% CI 1.6-7.8; P=.003; workday ΔM12: 3.0 min/bout, 95% CI 0.1-5.9; P=.04). Conclusions Sit-to-stand desks exerted potentially more favorable physical behavior accumulation patterns than treadmill desks. Future active workstation trials should consider strategies to promote more frequent long-term movement bouts and dissuade prolonged static postural fixity. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02376504; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02376504

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“…Five interventions were held in the United Kingdom (UK) [ 35 – 39 ] and 2 interventions in Canada [ 40 , 41 ]. The United States of America (USA) contributed with 5 sit-stand desk-based RCTs [ 12 , 42 – 45 ] and Japan with 1 intervention [ 46 ]. Notice that 14 out of the 23 RCTs were performed in countries belonging to the Commonwealth, and 19 out of 23 in English-speaking countries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Providing office workers with height-adjustable workstation to reduce and interrupt workplace sitting time: protocol for the Stand Up for Healthy Aging (SUFHA) cluster randomized controlled trial

Júdice

Silva

Teno

et al. 2023

Trials

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Background Sedentary behavior (SB) has been linked to several negative health outcomes. Therefore, reducing SB or breaking up prolonged periods of SB improves functional fitness, food consumption, job satisfaction, and productivity. Reducing SB can be achieved by introducing a health-enhancing contextual modification promoted by a sit-stand desk in the workplace. The primary goal will be to test the effectiveness of this intervention in reducing and breaking up SB, while improving health outcomes in office-based workers during a 6-month intervention. Methods A two-arm (1:1), superiority parallel-group cluster RCT will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention in a sample of office-based workers from a university in Portugal. The intervention will consist of a psychoeducation session, motivational prompts, and contextual modification promoted by a sit-stand desk in the workplace for 6 months. The control group will work as usual in their workplace, with no contextual change or prompts during the 6-month intervention. Three assessment points will be conducted in both groups, pre-intervention (baseline), post-intervention, and a 3-month follow-up. The primary outcomes include sedentary and physical activity-related variables, which will be objectively assessed with 24 h monitoring using the ActivPAL for 7 days. The secondary outcomes include (a) biometric indices as body composition, body mass index, waist circumference, and postural inequalities; and (b) psychosocial variables such as overall and work-related fatigue, overall discomfort, life/work satisfaction, quality of life, and eating behavior. Both the primary and secondary outcomes will be assessed at each assessment point. Discussion This study will lean on the use of a sit-stand workstation for 6 months, prompted by an initial psychoeducational session and ongoing motivational prompts. We will aim to contribute to this topic by providing robust data on alternating sitting and standing postures in the workplace. Trial registration The trial was prospectively registered, and the details are at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JHGPW; Registered 15 November 2022. OSF Preregistration.

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Effects of an “Active-Workstation” Cluster RCT on Daily Waking Physical Behaviors

Abstract: Supplemental digital content is available in the text.

Cited by 7 publications

References 25 publications

“It’s Been a Game Changer”: Examining Treadmill Desk Use When Working from Home

“It’s Been a Game Changer”: Examining Treadmill Desk Use When Working from Home

Impact of Sit-to-Stand and Treadmill Desks on Patterns of Daily Waking Physical Behaviors Among Overweight and Obese Seated Office Workers: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Providing office workers with height-adjustable workstation to reduce and interrupt workplace sitting time: protocol for the Stand Up for Healthy Aging (SUFHA) cluster randomized controlled trial

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