Effects of a planning intervention on physical activity behavior in an RCT: Intention strength as moderator and action planning, coping planning, and coping self-efficacy as mediators.

“…The fact that action planning was not a mediator between intention and behavior in our study might be because physical activity intention was not a significant predictor of action planning. This contradicts several studies showing that intention is a positive predictor of action planning (Pfeffer & Strobach, 2019;Schwarzer, Luszczynska, Ziegelmann, Scholz, & Lippke, 2008;. Coping planning mediated the intention-behavior relationship when stress and self-control where high at the same time.…”

“…Our sample consisted of individuals at different phases in the behavior change process and is compound of physical activity adopters as well as maintainers. Because action planning seems to be a more important technique for physical activity adoption while coping planning seems to be primarily important for maintenance of the respective behavior (Lippke, Ziegelmann, & Schwarzer, 2004, 2005; Scholz et al, 2008; Schwarzer et al, 2007), the pattern of our results could also reflect effects that occur at different phases of health behavior change (Pfeffer & Strobach, 2019). Future studies should examine these associations separately for adopters and maintainers.…”

“…However, this procedure is ideal for the use of implementation intentions. Many researches showed that being motivated by the goal-directed behaviour is a moderator, and even a pre-requisite, of implementation intentions effects: this strategy facilitate goal achievement only when people are motivated to act (44) (45). This condition would here be satis ed since voluntarily engaging in the present study should imply to be motivated by the target behaviour, meaning reducing alcohol consumption and use of binge drinking.…”

“…Martens et al reported + 0.7 days/week and + 35mins/week of completing vigorous PA at 1-month follow-up in participants who received a single session motivational intervention versus a standard educational brochure [ 66 ]. In studies by Bray et al and Pfeffer et al participants reported +78mins/week and + 0.86 h/week greater MVPA at 6-weeks and 1-week follow up respectively, following single session interventions which focused on action planning for PA versus no/alternative intervention control [ 63 , 69 ]. Conner et al and Cooke et al found single session interventions involving affective messaging and self-affirmation around physical activity behaviours were effective compared with no intervention and non-affirmation at 3 and 1-week follow-up respectively, however actual change in time spent completing PA were not reported [ 64 , 65 ].…”