Anthropometric and behavioural changes after an app-based multimodal treatment for patients with obesity

A previous clinical trial including patients with a BMI between 30 and 40 kg/m² has shown that using the digital treatment programme zanadio for the duration of 12 months led to a clinically relevant and significant weight loss in the intervention group (IG), which was significantly higher than in the care-as-usual control group (CG). Secondary endpoints, i.e., quality of life, well-being and the waist-to-height ratio improved significantly in the IG during the 12 month study period. Compared to the first clinical trial to evaluate zanadio, in which only participants with BMI grade I and II were allowed, the present study also includes participants with BMI grade III, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of zanadio across different BMI grades and in particular for patients with BMI grade III. The primary endpoint is the percentage weight change compared to baseline. The secondary endpoints are well-being, waist-to-height ratio and obesity-specific quality-of-life. Moreover, changes in mal-adaptive eating behaviours, i.e., emotional, restraint and external eating, that might influence weight and weight maintenance, will be analysed. Data of the primary and secondary endpoints are collected via telephone interviews and online surveys at baseline and every 3 months for 12 months (T0-T4). In this study we specifically included a pertinent proportion of male patients, who were sparsely represented in the previous clinical trial (Roth et al., submitted) and who are generally less likely to participate in behavioural obesity treatment programmes (Jebb et al., 2011; Sepah et al., 2017). By doing so, gender-specific differences can be exploratively evaluated.