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Health Education Research Advance Access originally published online on October 10, 2006
Health Education Research 2008 23(3):402-413; doi:10.1093/her/cyl101
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Effects of tailoring health messages on physical activity

Tamara Smeets1, J. Brug2 and H. de Vries1,*

1 Department of Health Education and Promotion, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
2 Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

* Correspondence to: H. de Vries. E-mail: hein.devries{at}gvo.unimaas.nl

Computer-tailored printed education can be a promising way of promoting physical activity. The present study tested whether computer-tailored feedback on physical activity is effective and whether there are differences between respondents with low and high motivation to change. Respondents (n = 487) were randomly assigned to a tailored intervention group or a no information control group. Physical activity and determinants were measured at baseline and after 3 months. At post-test, the motivated respondents in the control group were more likely not to meet the recommendation for physical activity than to meet it, and motivated respondents in the experimental group were more likely to engage in transport-related activities and showed more improvement over time for the total activity score than respondents in the control group (β = 0.24, P = 0.02). Both groups improved their behaviour over time. No group differences in physical activity were found for the unmotivated respondents. The results showed that the effects of the tailored feedback were restricted to respondents who had a positive motivation to change at baseline. Possible explanations could be that unmotivated respondents were unwilling to read and process the information because they felt ‘no need to change’. Alternatively, one tailored feedback letter may not have been sufficient for this unmotivated group.

Received on April 18, 2005; accepted on August 7, 2006


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