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. 2020 Dec 1;17(23):8942. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17238942

Table 2.

Participant perceptions of the acceptability of the e-health software.

Perceptions of the software
  • (a)

    Mental preparation

  • (b)

    Passive prompts

  • (c)

    Lack of autonomy

  • (d)

    Sensitivity of software

  • (a)

    ‘I’d be working away, “Oh, I’m not quite ready for a break”, and the extra five minutes, I think it starts like mentally preparing you, so you start winding things up a bit to a point where you can finish, so that is really useful.’ p. 12.

  • (b)

    ‘[The software] was aggressive, but I think it actually means it’s effective, whereas [prompts alone] isn’t quite so effective’ p. 12.

  • (c)

    ‘Giving you the option or the choice to do something would be better’ p. 10.

  • (d)

    ‘[The software] didn’t recognise perhaps when you’d gone off to teach. So I would come back in, and you’d almost have to falsify the information, because it’d be saying, “What have you done?” But you might have walked to three different […] buildings, and actually not been stagnant, but it didn’t recognise, it just thought, you’re not at your computer. It always thought you were sat stagnant, so you need to get up and move. […] It probably didn’t give the truest reflection […] Sometimes you’d come back and you just put, I don’t know, two hours, but you weren’t walking for two hours. It was difficult to know.’ p. 15.

Types of break modalities
  • (a)

    Purposeful PA

  • (b)

    Incidental PA integrated into working tasks

  • (a)

    ‘I’d just walk up and down the stairs […] It’s two flights. I used to do that twice, and that’d be just over five minutes.’ p. 6.

  • (b)

    ‘It was a prompt to get up and move, and rather than perhaps sending all your photocopying at the end of the day […] I’d probably go throughout the day, so I could utilise the [software] breaks, then I’ll go, and it was just a good way to get up and move, really.’ p. 15.

Impact on;
  • (a)

    Health, well-being;

  • (b)

    Work-related outcomes

  • (a)

    ‘I did feel better. Just a bit of calm, bit of peace and quiet […] so it’s quite nice just to clear your head, and like I say, just get a bit of fresh air and stretch your legs.’ p. 13.

  • (b)

    ‘If I inadvertently was typing, and it [the software] came up, and I hit the carriage return or something, it became the active window, so therefore it launched straight away, rather than just sitting there […] I didn’t lose any work, it was just, frustrating.’ p. 3.

Maintenance of behaviour
  • (a)

    Reduced frequency of breaks

  • (b)

    Incorporating PA into breaks

  • (a)

    ‘Now the software’s disabled on my pc, it could be an hour and a half before I actually get up to take the break sort of thing, but I obviously will get up at some point, and obviously go and make myself and my colleague a drink or whatever, or I don’t tend to walk up and down the stairs now, but sometimes a trip to the loo or it’s a trip to the kitchen, that sort of thing.’ p. 3.

  • (b)

    ‘[Since completing the trial] I still go out every day, so that’s good.’ p. 12.