JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sedentary lifestyle and being overweight/obesity are well-established cardiovascular risk factors and contribute significantly to the global burden of disease. Changing such behaviours is complex and requires support to achieve. Social media interventions show promise in supporting health behaviour change but their impact is unclear. Moreover, previous reviews reported contradictory evidence regarding the relationship between engagement with social media intervention and the efficacy of these intervention.

Objective:

This review sought to critically synthesise the available evidence regarding the impact of social media interventions on physical activity and weight among healthy adults. Additionally, the review examined the impact of engagement with social media interventions on their efficacy.

Methods:

CINAHL and MEDLINE were searched for relevant randomized trials investigating the impact of social media interventions on weight and physical activity published between 2011 and 2021 in the English language. Studies were included if the intervention used social media tools that provide explicit interaction between participants. Studies were excluded if the intervention was passively delivered through an application website or if participants had a known chronic disease. Eligible studies were appraised for quality and synthesized using narrative synthesis.

Results:

Seventeen papers reporting 16 trials from four countries with a total of 7372 participants were identified. Nine studies explored the effect on physical activity, six studies investigated weight reduction and one study assessed the effect on both physical activity and weight reduction. Evidence of the effect of the social media interventions on physical activity and weight was mixed across the included studies. There were no standard metrics for measuring engagement with social media and the relationship between engagement with the intervention and behaviour change was also mixed. While six studies reported that engagement was not a predictor of behaviour change, engagement and usage of social media interventions were found to be related to behaviour change in five studies.

Conclusions:

Despite the promise of social media interventions, the evidence regarding their effectiveness is mixed. Further robust studies are needed to elucidate the components of social media interventions that lead to successful behaviour change. Furthermore, the effect of engagement with social media interventions on behaviour change needs to be clearly understood. Clinical Trial: registration ID: CRD42022311430.