Smartphone app-based interventions on physical activity behaviors and psychological correlates in healthy young adults: A systematic review

Abstract

Background The issue of low physical activity (PA) levels among the youth is a longstanding concern. Smartphone applications offer a promising avenue for delivering interventions that are both accessible and engaging. Up to now, there appears to be a gap in the literature, with no systematic reviews assessing the efficacy of smartphone apps in encouraging increased physical activity among healthy young adults. Objective To synthesize the effects of a smartphone app-based intervention on PA and PA-related psychological correlates in healthy young adults (18–35 years old). Methods A search was conducted on eighteen databases: PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Communication and Mass Media Complete, Article First, Biomed Central, BioOne, EBSCOHost, JSTOR, ProQuest, SAGE Reference Online, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor&Francis, and Wiley Online. The search covered the period up until December 2023. This research included all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated the effectiveness of smartphone app-based interventions on PA and PA related psychological outcomes in healthy young adults. The overall impact was determined by vote counting based on the direction of effect and aggregating p values. The quality of the evidence was evaluated using an 8-item scale. This study has been registered in the PROSPERO database with the identification number CRD42023390033. Results A total of 8403 articles were retrieved, and based on the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, seven articles were selected for inclusion. Among these articles, four high-quality RCTs were identified, and the results of vote counting and combining p values methods suggested that smartphone-based app interventions did not demonstrate significant effectiveness in improving PA and PA-related psychological outcomes. However, some improvements were observed. The analysis results, which were categorized into fitness apps and health apps based on the characteristics of the interventions, also failed to demonstrate significant intervention effects. Conclusion The findings indicate that, currently, there are no significant effects of smartphone app interventions on improving PA and PA-related psychological outcomes in healthy young adults aged 18–35 years. It is important to note that these findings should be interpreted with caution due to the limited number of included studies. Future research should focus on employing high-quality study designs to determine the true effects of interventions and analyze various smartphone app interventions. These analyses should encompass different app characteristics (e.g., fitness app and health app), various combinations (e.g., fitness app alone and fitness app in combination with other interventions), diverse intervention goals (e.g., PA and PA along with other outcomes), and multiple intervention characteristics (e.g., frequency and duration).