Development of Sports Nutrition Educational Tools (NutriSportExTM): A Web-Application for Malaysian National Athletes

Abstract

The use of electronics or technology, to improve the subjects’ knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) in nutrition or their compliance in recording their diet, for general primary care is not uncommon. However, there are more to be explored to improve sports nutrition KAP. The objective of this study was to develop a web app tool for athletes to increases their KAP in sports nutrition and to test on their acceptance towards the web app tool. This study was divided into 3 phases. Phase I involves the development of the web app. In Phase II, a focus group of 20 people was recruited to test the web app tool. Phase III was to evaluate the effectiveness of the web app in increasing athletes’ sports nutrition KAP and their acceptance of the web app. 30 athletes were recruited to use this web app for a week, a PRE- and POST-intervention KAP questionnaire were given. There was a strong correlation between athletes’ attitude towards this tool and intention to use in the future (r = 0.675). The more this web app tool was perceived as useful, the more likely they will visit the web app (r = 0.589). Although the web app was well-accepted among the athletes, their KAP score was significantly reduced after the intervention (p= 0.011). The reduction of scores was due to the lack of consistent usage on the web app. In conclusion, it requires more facilitating support from the coach, longer training time, reminders, and entertainment features for consistent usage, to improve the athletes’ KAP in sports nutrition via the web app.