A Randomized ‘just-in-time’ Prompt To Interrupt Prolonged Sitting At Two International Conferences Held In Two Countries

Abstract

Prolonged sitting has a detrimental effect on lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity leading to increased risks of metabolic conditions. Attendees at conferences typically sit for long periods during oral presentations. The use of visual cues or ‘just-in-time’ (JIT) prompts during oral presentations can inform audiences about the deleterious effects of prolonged sitting and encourage them to avoid sitting for long periods. It remains unclear whether these ‘just-in-time’ prompts used in conference settings are effective in reducing prolonged sitting. The ‘just-in-time’ prompts were used in two separate conferences—one focused on health and the other on language. Ten oral presentation sessions were randomly assigned to the experimental group (EXPT, with the JIT prompt) and ten oral presentation sessions to the control group (CON, without the JIT prompt). In both conferences, the proportion of the attendees who stood up (i.e. did not sit) during the oral presentations in the EXPT conditions was less than 10%. The main finding was that the use of the JIT prompt to discourage prolonged sitting at the health conference where attendees were likely to be knowledgeable about the dangers of prolonged sitting was ineffective (EXPT vs CON conditions, p>0.05; ES=0.69) compared to conference attendees at a language conference (EXPT vs CON conditions, p<0.05, ES=1.14). Further research is warranted to examine the efficacies of different strategies to interrupt prolonged sitting at conferences.