A digital lifestyle programme for people with T2DM: User characteristics and physical activity tracking engagement

Background: NICE approved DESMOND is a group-based face-to-face education programme for people with type 2 diabetes to support them with their diagnosis and management of their condition through lifestyle modification and behaviour change. In 2018 DESMOND was translated into a digital programme and physical activity self-monitoring was added. Users are encouraged to set a step goal and can track their steps via linking to Fitbit, Google Fit and Garmin or enter these manually.
Purpose: To describe user characteristics of DESMOND digital, those who track their steps as well as engagement and retention with physical activity tracking.
Methods: Demographic and anthropometric information were self-reported during registration and extracted from the MyDESMOND database as well as which users chose to track their steps. User retention duration was defined from the day a user registered to their last day of access.
Results: To October 2023, 38097 people registered (47.6% female, 57.6 ± 12.5 years, 72.9% white, mean BMI: 34.0 ± 8.7kg/m2). Of these, 16.4% (n=6257) tracked their steps (48.5% female, 56.0 ± 11.6 years, 76.6% white, mean BMI: 34.5 ± 10.3kg/m2). Steps were entered manually by 3486 (55.7%) and via a consumer wearable device by 2771 (44.3%) users. Those who tracked steps using a wearable device and manually were retained in the programme for an average of 349.5 ± 256.9 and 113.9 ± 163.2 days retrospectively. Those who tracked their steps using a wearable device and manually logged their steps a mean of 132.5 ±153.3 (39% of programme engagement duration) times and 52.4 ±111.5 (51% of programme engagement duration) times respectively.
Conclusions: Characteristics of those who choose to track their steps are similar to those who do not. Those who tracked their steps using a wearable device were retained in the programme three times longer than those who entered their steps manually.