Katri Kostamo1, Piia Jallinoja2, Kari Mikko Vesala3, Vera Araújo-Soares4, Falko F Sniehotta4, Nelli Hankonen5. 1. The University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: katri.kostamo@helsinki.fi. 2. The Tampere University, Tampere, Finland. 3. The University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. 4. (c)Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom. 5. The University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; The Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
Abstract
RATIONALE: Trials evaluating interventions to promote health behavior change rarely embed investigations that assess participant perceptions of crucial triggers of change. OBJECTIVE: The "Let's Move It" (LMI) randomized trial evaluated a theorybased whole school system intervention aiming to increase physical activity (PA) of adolescents attending vocational schools. This article serves two main purposes: to describe how to use the critical incident technique (CIT) to conduct in qualitative process evaluation to identify events, including intervention elements, which LMI trial participants perceived to enable or support behavior change. METHOD:Semi-structured interviews (n = 34) conducted immediately post intervention from intervention and control arms were analyzed using the CIT. RESULTS: The analysis identified altogether 39 critical incidents. Most of the critical incidents were related to the LMI in the intervention arm and the findings are partly aligned with the LMI intervention theory. Analysis revealed several critical incidents also in the control arm, including gaining insights regarding PA and mere measurement effects, illustrating challenges facing real-world trials. CONCLUSION: The CIT seems a promising approach for directing analysis towards potentially crucial intervention elements as described by the participants themselves, helping in focusing and limiting the text corpus to accounts relevant to change. Qualitative evaluations in trials may add valuable understanding to complement quantitative assessments.
RCT Entities:
RATIONALE: Trials evaluating interventions to promote health behavior change rarely embed investigations that assess participant perceptions of crucial triggers of change. OBJECTIVE: The "Let's Move It" (LMI) randomized trial evaluated a theorybased whole school system intervention aiming to increase physical activity (PA) of adolescents attending vocational schools. This article serves two main purposes: to describe how to use the critical incident technique (CIT) to conduct in qualitative process evaluation to identify events, including intervention elements, which LMI trial participants perceived to enable or support behavior change. METHOD: Semi-structured interviews (n = 34) conducted immediately post intervention from intervention and control arms were analyzed using the CIT. RESULTS: The analysis identified altogether 39 critical incidents. Most of the critical incidents were related to the LMI in the intervention arm and the findings are partly aligned with the LMI intervention theory. Analysis revealed several critical incidents also in the control arm, including gaining insights regarding PA and mere measurement effects, illustrating challenges facing real-world trials. CONCLUSION: The CIT seems a promising approach for directing analysis towards potentially crucial intervention elements as described by the participants themselves, helping in focusing and limiting the text corpus to accounts relevant to change. Qualitative evaluations in trials may add valuable understanding to complement quantitative assessments.
Authors: Jekaterina Schneider; Juho Polet; Mary Hassandra; Taru Lintunen; Arto Laukkanen; Nelli Hankonen; Mirja Hirvensalo; Tuija H Tammelin; Timo Törmäkangas; Martin S Hagger Journal: BMC Public Health Date: 2020-09-22 Impact factor: 3.295