Multiple Tailored Messages are Effective in Increasing Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among Callers to the Cancer Information Service

Abstract

Results are reported from a large (n = 3,402) four-group randomized trial to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among callers to the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Cancer Information Service (CIS) using tailored print materials. Following a baseline telephone interview, which included a brief educational message (BEM), participants were assigned randomly within CIS offices to one of four groups: single untailored (SU) group-one untailored set of materials; single tailored (ST) group-one tailored booklet; multiple tailored (MT) group-four tailored materials; and multiple retailored (MRT) group-four tailored materials with retailoring based on new information obtained at 5 months follow-up. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted at 5 (n = 2,233) and 12 months (n = 1,927) after baseline. The main outcome measure was self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption using a seven-item food frequency questionnaire. At 12 months follow-up, there was a significant linear trend across groups of 0.21 servings (p = 0.0002). Specific nested hypotheses then were tested and revealed significant mean serving differences between SU (5.07) vs. MT (5.64) (p = 0.002) and SU vs. MRT (5.71; p < 0.001). Although the mean for ST (5.40) was greater than that for SU (5.07), the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.07), and no difference was found between MT vs. MRT (p = 0.69). A higher proportion of recipients of tailored materials reported reading all of the materials and believing that they were written especially for them. No differences by experimental condition were found for the perceived usefulness or motivational impact of the print materials. In this trial, MT print materials were more effective at increasing fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption than were SU materials. The intervention mechanisms responsible for this effect merit further research. Retailoring did not produce a significant difference when compared with longitudinal baseline tailoring.

Recruiting Low-Income Healthy Women to Research: An Exploratory Study

“…The research protocol was approved by the institutional review boards at both the University of California, San Francisco and the Northern California Cancer Center. Similar research using telephone lines to implement various types of health interventions has been performed in diverse settings for non-minority populations (Darrow et al 1998;Davis et al 2004;Heimendinger et al 2005;Marcus et al 2005;Miller et al 2005;Strecher et al 2005).…”

Randomized Trial on the5 a Day, the Rio Grande WayWebsite, A Web-based Program to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Rural Communities

“…Responses were converted to servings per day following Thompson and colleagues (2002). Second, participants reported the number of servings of FV they ate, on average, each day on a single item, as used in numerous other studies (Heimendinger et al, 2005;Marcus et al, 2001;Nicklas et al, 1998).…”

“…Responses were converted to servings per day following Thompson and colleagues (2002). Second, participants reported the number of servings of FV they ate, on average, each day on a single item, as used in numerous other studies (Heimendinger et al, 2005;Marcus et al, 2001;Nicklas et al, 1998).Several potential moderators were assessed: knowledge of health benefits of FV (pretest Cronbach alpha = 0.81, posttest Cronbach alpha = 0.82), support from others to eat FV (how much do family and friends encourage you to eat FV; 1 = not at all, 4 = a lot), involvement in purchasing and preparing foods (decide what foods are bought and prepared and served; 1 = not at all, 5 = a lot), experience using computers and the Internet (ever used a computer or Internet; number of times and hours in typical week used Internet), perceived self-efficacy for using the Internet (confidence in ability to use the Internet with no one to help; 5-point Likert scale), perceived self-efficacy for obtaining accurate and reliable health information (pretest Cronbach alpha = 0.77, posttest Cronbach alpha = 0.67), and social and demographic characteristics. Participants reported on their frequency of 13 meal preparation and eating practices (1 = never; 5 = always).…”

A Randomized Clinical Trial of a Tailored Lifestyle Intervention for Obese, Sedentary, Primary Care Patients

“…[18][19][20][21][22] Tailored interventions that match individual patient characteristics with treatment hold promise to be effective for promoting weight loss and increasing physical activity, as well as for their generalizability to clinical application. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] Efficacious, individually tailored interventions that can be implemented by print, telephone, video, or a combination of these media without the need for extensive face-to-face or group counseling may be an effective and easy-todisseminate model that primary care physicians could refer patients to. We evaluated such an intervention in a randomized, controlled trial of obese, sedentary adults recruited from primary care practices.…”