Maintenance Of physical aTivity beHaviour (MOTH) programme

Also see Digital support for maintaining physical activity in people with long-term conditions

and Non-digital support for maintaining physical activity in people with long-term conditions – within Maintenance Of physical acTivity beHaviour (MOTH) programme

Principal Investigator:Professor Mary Barker

Deputy Lead: Professor Mary Barker (Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Science) Professor Maria Stokes (Professor of Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton, UK Head of Active Living Research Group) 

Team members: Dr James Gavin, Luisa Holt, Professor Jo Adams, Dr David Culliford, Professor Suzanne McDonough (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; Visiting Prof at UoS), Dr Aoife Stephenson (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland), Dr James Faulkner (University of Winchester), Mr Ranj Parmar, Mr Jem Lawson (Public contributors), Dr Euan Sadler, Dr Dorit Kunkel, Dr Simon Fraser, Professor Sandy Jack, Professor James Bilzon (University of Bath), Dr Simon Jones (University of Bath), Dr Enhad Chowdhury (University of Bath), Mr Jem Lawson and Mr Ranj Parmer (public contributors)

Start: October 2019 Ends: 31 December 2023

Project Partners:  Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University of Winchester, Bournemouth University, University of Portsmouth, Wessex Clinical Research Network, University of Bath, NHS, AHSN

Lay summary

Physical activity is an important part of managing and preventing long-term conditions (LTC), through supporting people to remain active, improve symptoms and reduce future problems. A variety of digital and non-digital programmes and tools exist, such as exercise referral schemes and websites or mobile applications, to support people to start being active. However, these programmes/tools are often less effective at helping people to stay active in the longer term.

The MOTH programme aims to identify existing digital tools and their components that help people with LTCs to stay active and understand the factors that support or inhibit their use in the NHS. The programme is also working with exercise referral schemes to evaluate and understand the needs of participants to support physical activity after the scheme has ended. Ultimately, the MOTH programme aims to develop digital and non-digital support that is usable, accessible and relevant to help people with LTCs to stay active. In doing so, the programme is aligned to many of the NHS long-term plan priorities, such as ‘responding to population needs’, ‘supporting people to age well’ and ‘increasing equitable provision of resources’