Aiden Buffey

SPARC 2020 Posters

Day 1

Divya Sivaramakrishnan, Jillian Manner

Emily Carson and Fiona Paterson

Evaluation of a sedentary time fractionation intervention for adult home-based workers: Study Protocol

Other authors: Dr. Brian Carson and Prof. Alan Donnelly
Abstract:

Background: With COVID-19 shifting workplace practices, a growing population of
individuals are now working from home. Little is objectively known about the physical
activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) of adults that are home-based workers during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Previous office-based research has shown that prolonged sitting is
increasingly prevalent, with some office-based occupations workers being sedentary for
75.8% or 81.8% of their working hours, often accrued in prolonged bouts. Coupling a
predominately sedentary occupation with guidelines to restrict movement could see
individuals compromising their metabolic health.

Aim: This study will objectively investigate the current PA levels and SB of home-based adult
workers and examine the feasibility of short light-intensity sedentary breaks and its effects
on cognitive function.

Methods: 112 adults (30 to 67 years old) who are working from home and have no physical
or mental health-related impairments that would prevent them from walking continuously,
for five minutes at numerous times throughout the day, will complete a six-week within-
subjects design intervention. The first three-weeks will be observational, where participants
will wear an activPAL3 micro accelerometer and continue with their daily life. The following
three weeks will consist of breaking up their sitting time using ‘BreakTimer’, a computer
desktop-based application, during working hours. The participants sitting time will be
fractionated every 45 minutes with five minutes of light-intensity walking. Their cognitive
function will be measured weekly via an online survey created using PsyToolkit throughout
the six weeks. Three cognitive tests will be completed by the participants to assess attention
(Go/No-go task); executive memory performance (Eriksen Flanker Test) and working
memory performance (N-Back with N = 3). The primary outcome is prolonged bouts of SB (≥1
hour) assessed pre- and post-intervention. The secondary outcome is cognitive function
assessed pre- and post-intervention.

Conclusion: This study examines the PA and SB of a newly emerging occupational
population. Given COVID-19 and its long-term implications for restricted movement, we
must study home-based workers and the effects it has on their PA, SB, and cognitive
function. The findings should inform policies and public health guidance surrounding PA and
SB when working from home.

Loading…

Cookie and Privacy Settings

How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visist to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

SPARC 2020 Posters

Day 1

Meredith Schertzinger

Divya Sivaramakrishnan, Jillian Manner

Zhuo Yuepeijing

Samuel Warne

Victoria Whiteford

Ilaria Pina

Dearbhla Jordan

Simone Tomaz

Aiden Buffey

Day 2

SPARC 2020 Posters

David Callaghan

Aileen Armstrong

Emily Carson and Fiona Paterson

Hannah Burnett

Carl Greenwood

Sara Walsh

Mathew Fraser

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Aiden Buffey

Evaluation of a sedentary time fractionation intervention for adult home-based workers: Study Protocol