A Pedometer-based Intervention With and Without Email Counselling in General Practice

A two-arm parallel randomised controlled trial comparing pedometer-based intervention with and without email counselling in a primary care setting. Physically inactive patients from four general practices will be randomised to the pedometer-plus-email group or to the pedometer-alone group. All patients will be instructed to gradually increase the daily number of steps to at least 10,000. Patients in the pedometer-plus-email group will receive 8 counselling emails based on behavioural techniques. The primary outcome will be change in average daily steps measured during 7-day period at baseline and at 12 weeks.