TY  - JOUR
AU  - Stevens, Victor J
AU  - Funk, Kristine L
AU  - Brantley, Phillip J
AU  - Erlinger, Thomas P
AU  - Myers, Valerie H
AU  - Champagne, Catherine M
AU  - Bauck, Alan
AU  - Samuel-Hodge, Carmen D
AU  - Hollis, Jack F
PY  - 2008
DA  - 2008/1/25
TI  - Design and Implementation of an Interactive Website to Support Long-Term Maintenance of Weight Loss
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e1
VL  - 10
IS  - 1
KW  - Internet
KW  - website design
KW  - behavioral interventions
KW  - weight loss
KW  - weight maintenance
AB  - Background:  For most individuals, long-term maintenance of weight loss requires long-term, supportive intervention. Internet-based weight loss maintenance programs offer considerable potential for meeting this need. Careful design processes are required to maximize adherence and minimize attrition. Objective: This paper describes the development, implementation and use of a Web-based intervention program designed to help those who have recently lost weight sustain their weight loss over 1 year. Methods: The weight loss maintenance website was developed over a 1-year period by an interdisciplinary team of public health researchers, behavior change intervention experts, applications developers, and interface designers. Key interactive features of the final site include social support, self-monitoring, written guidelines for diet and physical activity, links to appropriate websites, supportive tools for behavior change, check-in accountability, tailored reinforcement messages, and problem solving and relapse prevention training. The weight loss maintenance program included a reminder system (automated email and telephone messages) that prompted participants to return to the website if they missed their check-in date. If there was no log-in response to the email and telephone automated prompts, a staff member called the participant. We tracked the proportion of participants with at least one log-in per month, and analyzed log-ins as a result of automated prompts. Results: The mean age of the 348 participants enrolled in an ongoing randomized trial and assigned to use the website was 56 years; 63% were female, and 38% were African American. While weight loss data will not be available until mid-2008, website use remained high during the first year with over 80% of the participants still using the website during month 12. During the first 52 weeks, participants averaged 35 weeks with at least one log-in. Email and telephone prompts appear to be very effective at helping participants sustain ongoing website use. Conclusions: Developing interactive websites is expensive, complex, and time consuming. We found that extensive paper prototyping well in advance of programming and a versatile product manager who could work with project staff at all levels of detail were essential to keeping the development process efficient.  Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov NCT00054925 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - http://www.jmir.org/2008/1/e1/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.931
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18244892
DO  - 10.2196/jmir.931
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/jmir.931
ER  -