The ability to benefit from an intervention to encourage use of treadmill workstations: Experiences of office workers with overweight or obesity

One way to increase physical activity in offices is to install treadmill workstations, where office workers can walk on a treadmill while performing their normal tasks. However, the experiences of people using these treadmill workstations over a long period of time is not known. In this 13-month study, we explored the experiences of office workers with treadmill workstations available in their offices. After completing a larger randomized controlled trial with 80 office workers ages 40 to 67 years with overweight or obesity, we interviewed 20 participants from the intervention group, using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach with constant comparison of emerging codes, subcategories, and categories, followed by connecting the categories to create a core category. The core category is described as the “Ability to benefit.” Although all participants had a rather high motivational level and pre-existing knowledge about the health benefits of increasing physical activity at work, they had different capacities for benefiting from the intervention. The categories are described as ideal types: the Convinced, the Competitive, the Responsible, and the Vacillating. These ideal types do not represent any single participant but suggest generalized abstractions of experiences and strategies emerging from the coding of the interviews. One participant could easily have more than one ideal type. Because of differences in ideal type strategies and paths used throughout the course of the study, participants had different abilities to benefit from the intervention. Knowledge regarding the ideal types may be applied to facilitate the use of the treadmill workstations. Because different ideal types might require different prompts for behavior change, tailored intervention strategies directed towards specific ideal types could be necessary.