Effects of a Video-based mHealth Program for the Homebound Older Adults: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Methods/Design The SPIRIT statement was used as a guideline for this protocol paper. Study design and setting This is a single-blinded, two-armed randomized controlled trial. The research assistant who collects the data is blinded, but the subjects and the health care providers who are involved in the intervention are not. This study is supported by five community centers. The centers are widely scattered across Hong Kong, which helps to maximize the generalizability effect of this program.

Participants and recruitment strategy, and randomization The leaders of the community centers will help draw up lists of potential subjects. Simple random sampling with a fixed sample size will be employed to recruit subjects. The inclusion criteria of this study are (1) being aged 60 or over, (2) going outdoors less than once a week in the last six months, (3) living within the service area of a participating community center, and (4) ability to use a smartphone. The exclusion criteria are (1) being diagnosed with dementia, (2) inability to hear, see or communicate, (3) being bed-bound, (4) having an active psychiatric illness with recent hospital admission within the last six months, (5) living within an area with no internet coverage, and (6) being already engaged in other mHealth programs.

Potential subjects will be approached and invited to participate in the study. A consent form will be signed once the subject agrees to participate. The random assignment schedule, generated using the computer software Research Randomizer, will be compiled by a research team member who is not involved in subject recruitment. The group assignments will be put in a sealed envelope and revealed sequentially at the time of randomization. The research assistant, after successfully recruiting a subject, will call the research team member for the random assignment. The research team member who has no knowledge of the identity of the subject will make the assignment based on computer numbers ('1' = video-based mHealth program; '2' = control group).

Interventions A three-month program will be designed in this study. There will be two groups involved in this study, described as follows.

Intervention group This group of participants will receive a video-based mHealth program that includes two main elements: 1) nurse case management supported by a social service team, and 2) individual-specific video messages covering self-care topics delivered via smartphone.