Behavioural change for Parkinson’s Disease: A randomised controlled feasibility study to promote physical activity and exercise adherence among people with Parkinson’s: study protocol
Open accessAbstract
Background Parkinson’s is a common progressive neurological condition characterized by motor and non-motor deficits. Physical activity and exercise can improve health, but many people with Parkinson’s (PwP) have trouble reaching the recommended dosage. Our recent literature review found improvements in exercise adherence with behavioural change interventions, but it remains unclear which are most effective. Further qualitative research and patient and public involvement has informed a novel behavioural change intervention to be tested alongside an existing exercise program. Objective To examine the feasibility of behavioural change techniques delivered alongside an exercise programme to improve physical activity, function, and self-efficacy in PwP (and study procedures) to inform a future pilot RCT trial. Methods A parallel-arm single blinded randomised feasibility study. Twenty participants with Parkinson’s (Hoehn and Yahr stage 1-3) will be recruited from a physiotherapy primary-care waiting list. Following written consent, and baseline assessment, the participants will be randomly allocated to the intervention (n=10) or the control group (n=10). Both groups will receive usual care, which includes a weekly program of a multidisciplinary education, a supervised exercise class and a prescribed home exercise program. The intervention group will receive additional behavioural change techniques, targeting behaviour regulation, belief about capabilities and social influences. Class and home exercise adherence, behavioural component uptake and adherence, and negative events will be recorded. Outcomes will include enrolment and maintenance rates, physical function, falls, physical activity, and exercise self-efficacy measured pre- and post- the 12-week program (in-person). Surveys will be used to compare experiences and satisfaction between groups. Exit interviews will be completed with the intervention group only, exploring their experience of the behavioural change techniques. Discussion The results will help inform a future pilot RCT, based on the intervention acceptability, consent rate, maintenance, and protocol integrity. Trial Registration ClincialTrials.gov NCT06192628
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Attrition may have a detrimental impact on research outcomes.
“which may have a detrimental impact on research outcomes (Ahern et al., 2024).”
From A Systematic Review of Third-Wave Therapies to Reduce Distress and Improve Wellbeing and Quality of Life in People with Parkinson's Disease. (2025) · cites this paper as Ahern et al., 2024
The Methods > Outcomes measures table lists study and intervention dropout rates as feasibility outcomes. Methods > Data analysis also says participants with no follow-up measurements will be excluded. These passages show that attrition matters to this study, but they do not state that it has a detrimental impact on research outcomes. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- [42]Ahern L: Extended data for behavioural change for Parkinson’s disease: A randomised controlled feasibility study to promote physical activity and exercise adherence among people with Parkinson’s, study protocol. Zenodo. 2024. 10.5281/zenodo.10407626 PMC11109530 38784965 · DOI
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Christodoulou, D., Reeves, S., Carvalho, N. P., Stellman, J., & Gould, R. L. (2025) · Clinical Gerontologist · doi:10.1080/07317115.2025.2511957 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Attrition rates exceeded 20% in three studies, and one study did not report enough details to calculate the attrition rate, which may have a detrimental impact on research outcomes (Ahern et al., 2024).”
- Authors
- Ahern, L., Timmons, S., Lamb, S. E., & McCullagh, R.
- Affiliations
- University College Cork (IE)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Ahern, Leanne
- Venue
- HRB Open Research
- Publisher
- F1000 Research Ltd
- Published
- 2024-02-16
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 7
- ISSN
- 2515-4826 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11109530
- OpenAlex
- W4391893307
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 0.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- new_version (2024-05-29)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- HRB Open Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme (EPSPG/2021/77)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Parkinson's Disease Mechanisms and Treatments
- Keywords
- Parkinson's disease, behaviour change interventions, physical activity, exercise adherence, self-efficacy, physical function, falls, supervised exercise, home exercise program, physiotherapy, feasibility, behavioral regulation, social influence
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