Abstract

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for 70% of deaths globally every year. Cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic pulmonary diseases are four commonly caused NCDs. These NCDs usually occur due to modifiable risk factors such as poor diet, alcohol intake, and physical inactivity. Physical activity (PA) has benefits on reducing NCDs and the overall wellbeing of adults. E-health behaviour change interventions with PA outcomes, even though aimed at helping adults increase their PA, may differ in responses between men and women.
Objective: The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise the current evidence on sex-differences in PA changes after an e-health behaviour change intervention.
Methods: Electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo, and Cochrane were searched to retrieve papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Articles were included, that provided descriptions of interventions that employed e-health delivery modes such as Internet, email, and short messaging services (SMS), included PA as one of their outcomes and focused on healthy adult populations.
Results: In total 18 studies were included in the current systematic review. Of the 18 studies, 14 studies were analysed in both meta-analysis and qualitative synthesis. These 14 studies measured PA subjectively and had usable outcome data. In all, the group comparison showed no significant sex-effect (p=0.685) on changes in PA, post-intervention, whereas comparisons of pooled effects
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of men and women at follow-up showed a significant effect (p=0.008) indicating greater increases in PA among women over the long-term (mean follow-up = 23.5, SD = 12.7 weeks).
Conclusions: E-health behaviour change interventions lead to significant increases in PA, at both post-intervention and follow-up among men and women, with greater increases at follow-up among women compared to men. Clinically, it means that both men and women maybe able to maintain sustained increase in PA using e-health behaviour change interventions.