A randomised controlled trial to promote walking behaviour among university students

Background: Walking is one of the most effective and accessible forms of physical activity, yet university students walk very little. The present study aimed to test the effectiveness of a messaging intervention composed of health messages (focused on physical health) or wellbeing messages (focused on psychological wellbeing) plus goal setting and self-monitoring strategies to promote walking activity in the university context. Methods: In this study, a total of 230 university students from the University of Naples Federico II were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: health messages + self-monitoring (HSM), wellbeing messages + self-monitoring (WSM), self-monitoring (SM) and control group (no messages). All three intervention conditions were exposed to goal setting (doing at least 7000 steps a day) and were asked to monitor their daily progress through the specific step counting app. Participants’ physical activity and related psychological variables (intention, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, outcome expectancies, risk perception, self-efficacy, action planning, coping planning and action control) were assessed at Time 1 and Time 2 (two months later). Analyses were based on the N = 156 who completed all measures at both time points. Findings: Results showed that the persuasive messages focused on the physical benefits of taking 7000 steps a day, combined with self-monitoring, were the most effective in changing cognitions related to walking and behaviour. Discussion: Our study provides new information on which factors can be usefully targeted to promote walking activity, suggesting that future walking promotion interventions could focus on this type of persuasive messages.