The use of consumer-grade physical activity monitors: Insight into psychosocial determinants and technology acceptance.

Background: Consumer-grade physical activity (PA) monitors are used to optimize enrollment in clinical trials, to evaluate PA behavior, or to promote PA. Insight is needed into characteristics of people who use PA monitors and who do not, to enhance recruitment and generalizability of trials. We assessed demographics, psychosocial determinants and technology acceptance of (non-)users of PA monitors.

Methods: Dutch speaking adults were recruited via social media, email and personal contact. In an online questionnaire 533 participants (70 % women, age 43 ± 14 years) reported PA monitor use, PA and psychosocial determinants, and technology acceptance of PA monitors. Concepts were derived from the theory of planned behavior and the technology acceptance model. Primary outcome of the study was use of a consumer-grade PA monitor in the past month, analyzed with a stepwise logistic regression model, including psychosocial determinants, technology acceptance and PA and past tracking behavior.

Results: Of the participants, 40 % reported using a PA monitor in the past month. Demographics and psychosocial determinants of PA explained 12 % of PA monitor use. The odds for using a PA monitor was higher with higher feelings of autonomy (1.772; CI:1.128-2.783). Adding technology acceptance to the regression model increased the explained variance to 66 %, with significant ORs of perceived ease of use (2.403; CI:1.479-3.904), perceived usefulness (0.405; CI:0.224-0.731), attitude towards PA monitors (2.235; CI:1.222-4.087), affective quality (2.293 CI:1.252-4.201), intention to use PA monitors in the near future (4.174; CI:2.320-7.512), and subcultural appeal (0.660; CI:0.455-0.958).

Conclusions: This study confirmed the value of integrating consumer-grade PA in clinical trials, since they were used regardless of the amount of leisure time PA, motivation, age, and educational level. This indicates that trials that use people's own PA trackers to recruit and screen participants or in interventions likely includes a generalizable sample. Furthermore, the results provide concrete pointers within technology acceptance that could contribute to recruitment in trials relying on participants' own PA monitors.