TY  - JOUR
AU  - Chia, Airu
AU  - Chew, Muhammad Naeem Jia Sheng
AU  - Tan, Sarah Yi Xuan
AU  - Chan, Mei Jun
AU  - T Colega, Marjorelee
AU  - Toh, Jia Ying
AU  - Natarajan, Padmapriya
AU  - Lança, Carla
AU  - Shek, Lynette P
AU  - Saw, Seang-Mei
AU  - Müller-Riemenschneider, Falk
AU  - Chong, Mary Foong-Fong
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/6/9
TI  - A Web-Based Time-Use Application to Assess Diet and Movement Behavior in Asian Schoolchildren: Development and Usability Study of My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL)
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e25794
VL  - 23
IS  - 6
KW  - time use
KW  - web-based
KW  - diet
KW  - movement behaviors
KW  - usability
KW  - schoolchildren
AB  - Background: Web-based time-use diaries for schoolchildren are limited, and existing studies focus mostly on capturing physical activities and sedentary behaviors but less comprehensively on dietary behaviors. Objective: This study aims to describe the development of My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL)—a self-administered, web-based time-use application to assess diet and movement behavior—and to evaluate its usability in schoolchildren in Singapore. Methods: MEDAL was developed through formative research and an iterative user-centric design approach involving small groups of schoolchildren (ranging from n=5 to n=15, aged 7-13 years). To test the usability, children aged 10-11 years were recruited from 2 primary schools in Singapore to complete MEDAL for 2 weekdays and 2 weekend days and complete a 10-item usability questionnaire. Results: The development process revealed that younger children (aged <9 years) were less able to complete MEDAL independently. Of the 204 participants (118/204, 57.8% boys, and 31/201, 15.4% overweight) in the usability study, 57.8% (118/204) completed 3 to 4 days of recording, whereas the rest recorded for 2 days or less. The median time taken to complete MEDAL was 14.2 minutes per day. The majority of participants agreed that instructions were clear (193/203, 95.1%), that MEDAL was easy to use (173/203, 85.2%), that they liked the application (172/202, 85.1%), and that they preferred recording their activities on the web than on paper (167/202, 82.7%). Among all the factors evaluated, recording for 4 days was the least satisfactory component reported. Compared with boys, girls reported better recall ability and agreed that the time spent on completing 1-day entry was appropriate. Conclusions: MEDAL appears to be a feasible application to capture diet and movement behaviors in children aged 10-12 years, particularly in the Asian context. Some gender differences in usability performance were observed, but the majority of the participants had a positive experience using MEDAL. The validation of the data collected through the application is in progress. 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - https://www.jmir.org/2021/6/e25794
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/25794
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34106084
DO  - 10.2196/25794
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/25794
ER  -