Grant: Project Grant

Healthcare workers report significantly worse mental health and wellbeing than the average employed Canadian. Evidence suggests that healthcare workers' leisure-time physical activity is associated with higher mental and physical health, while occupational physical activity is not. Our pilot work demonstrated that previously inactive healthcare workers who develop sustained off-site, at-home exercise routines using mobile apps have improved depressive symptoms and burnout, and lower rates of sick leave. Yet, in our work, only 23% of healthcare workers remained engaged with the apps for at least 80 or more minutes on average per week at the end of the 12-week study. In semi-structured interviews completed following their participation in the study, healthcare workers voiced their desire to have support from our team to help them maintain their motivation and improve their adherence. Here, we propose to conduct a randomised trial with two conditions of an aerobic exercise mobile app (using a suite of apps for whole body weight-based training, yoga, Pilates, barre) with or without fitness coaches trained in motivational interviewing to improve healthcare workers' engagement with the suite of apps in their leisure time. In turn, we aim to improve their mental health and wellbeing as their exercise levels increase. By targeting adherence, our goal is to develop a feasible, engaging, and accessible solution that can be implemented as a more widely utilized program in the future, for healthcare workers and beyond.