Keegan Knittle

Keegan Knittle
University of Jyväskylä | JYU · Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences

PhD, MSc, BA

About

91
Publications
28,873
Reads
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3,277
Citations
Additional affiliations
October 2021 - present
University of Jyväskylä
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
November 2017 - September 2021
University of Helsinki
Position
  • Researcher
November 2014 - July 2017
University of Helsinki
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
October 2007 - December 2011
Leiden University
Field of study
  • Health Psychology
September 2006 - August 2007
Leiden University
Field of study
  • Health Psychology
August 2001 - August 2005
The University of Texas at Dallas
Field of study
  • Psychology

Publications

Publications (91)
Article
Full-text available
Physical activity levels among early adolescents and their parents are insufficient for health benefits. Identifying modifiable determinants in parent–child dyads can inform future research and interventions. We tested a partial least squares path model based on the integrated behavior change model in insufficiently active Finnish parent–child dyad...
Preprint
Full-text available
Cognitive control, defined as the allocation of mental resources required for goal-directed behaviour, is crucial for exercise participation as it is involved in regulating negative cognitive and affective responses caused by the demands of exercise. Research on both music and acute exercise separately show engagement of cognitive control processes...
Preprint
Full-text available
Personalised Interactive Music Systems (PIMS) are emerging as promising devices for enhancing physical activity and exercise outcomes. By leveraging real-time data and adaptive technologies, PIMS align musical features, such as tempo and genre with users’ physical activity patterns, including frequency and intensity, enhancing their overall experie...
Article
Full-text available
Adherence to dialysis, medication regimens and dietary and fluid intake recommendations can improve quality of life and survival in chronic kidney disease, but non-adherence is prevalent. This review and meta-analysis investigated the effects of behavioral interventions on treatment adherence in chronic kidney disease and examined intervention char...
Preprint
Adherence to dialysis, medication regimens and dietary and fluid intake recommendations can improve quality of life and survival in chronic kidney disease (CKD), but non-adherence is prevalent. This review and meta-analysis investigated the effects of behavioral interventions on treatment adherence in CKD and sought to identify intervention charact...
Preprint
There is a dearth of empirical research on techniques that effectively promote physical activity habits. This qualitative study addresses this knowledge gap by identifing the self-enactable techniques that people with varying levels of habit strength and physical activity experience use to support their own physical activity behavior and form or ma...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Health behaviors and motivations within family units are likely to be associated with the motives and behaviors of other family members. A potential mechanism for these relations is that parents citing autonomous motives toward physical activity are more likely to support their child’s autonomous motivation to be active. The current stu...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Physical activity levels among early adolescents and their parents are insufficient for health benefits. Identifying modifiable determinants in parent-child dyads can inform future research and interventions. Methods: We tested a partial least squares path model based on the integrated behavior change model in insufficiently active Finn...
Preprint
Full-text available
The use of Personalised Interactive Music Systems (PIMS) may provide benefits in promoting physical activity levels. This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the overall impact of PIMS in physical activity and exercise domains. Separate random effects meta-analyses were conducted for outcomes in physical activity levels, phy...
Article
Full-text available
Background Low levels of physical activity are associated with numerous adverse health outcomes, yet sedentary lifestyles are common among both children and adults. Physical activity levels tend to decline steeply among children aged between 8 and 12 years, even though children’s behavioral patterns are largely governed by familial structures. Simi...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Illness perceptions (IPs) and avoidance behavior both predict quality of life (QoL) in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This study examined whether the effects of IPs on QoL are mediated by avoidance behaviors, and whether this mediation is moderated by participant treatment-seeking status. Methods: People with self-reported...
Article
Full-text available
Importance Physical activity is associated with the risk for cognitive decline, but much of the evidence in this domain comes from studies with short follow-ups, which is prone to reverse causation bias. Objective To examine how length of follow-up, baseline age, physical activity amount, and study quality modify the longitudinal associations of p...
Preprint
Full-text available
BACKGROUND Low levels of physical activity are associated with numerous adverse health outcomes, yet sedentary lifestyles are common among both children and adults. Physical activity levels tend to decline steeply among children aged 8-12, despite the fact that children’s behavioral patterns are largely governed by familial structures. For this rea...
Article
Full-text available
Background Insufficient physical activity is a public health concern. New technologies may improve physical activity levels and enable the identification of its predictors with high accuracy. The Precious smartphone app was developed to investigate the effect of specific modular intervention elements on physical activity and examine theory-based pr...
Article
Full-text available
While a large body of research on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has identified characteristics of social environments that are conducive to optimal motivation, research has scarcely considered what individuals might themselves do to optimize motivation. Using the compendium of self-enactable techniques, this expert opinion study aimed to identify...
Article
Full-text available
Research generally shows that autonomous forms of motivation are associated with higher performance and job satisfaction, whereas controlled forms of motivation are linked to worse outcomes. These relationships are largely based on between-persons data from cross-sectional studies or longitudinal studies with few measurement points. However, motiva...
Preprint
While a large body of research on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has identified characteristics of social environments that are conducive to optimal motivation, research has scarcely considered what individuals might themselves do to optimize motivation. Using the compendium of self-enactable techniques, this expert opinion study aimed to identify...
Article
Full-text available
Objective Physical activity (PA) is associated with a decreased incidence of dementia, but much of the evidence comes from short follow-ups prone to reverse causation. This meta-analysis investigates the effect of study length on the association. Design A systematic review and meta-analysis. Pooled effect sizes, dose–response analysis and funnel p...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Insufficient physical activity is an increasing public health concern. New technologies may help to change physical activity levels while also enabling the identification of key predictors with high accuracy. The Precious smartphone app was developed to investigate the effect of specific, modular intervention elements on physical activit...
Article
Full-text available
Understanding the mechanisms underlying the effects of behaviour change interventions is vital for accumulating valid scientific evidence, and useful to informing practice and policy-making across multiple domains. Traditional approaches to such evaluations have applied study designs and statistical models, which implicitly assume that change is li...
Article
Full-text available
Food Go/No-Go training aims to alter implicit food biases by creating associations between perceiving unhealthy foods and withholding a dominant response. Asking participants to repeatedly inhibit an impulse to approach unhealthy foods can decrease unhealthy food intake in laboratory settings. Less is known about how people engage with app-based Go...
Book
Full-text available
How can I motivate my clients? How and when should I talk to my patients about weight loss or alcohol? What types of goals should people set? How are behavioral changes maintained? Questions like these are encountered every day in practical settings, and healthcare practitioners, counsellors, coaches or teachers may not always know the answers. Re...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Physical activity (PA) can reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, and while primary care settings offer a large reach to promote PA and reduce cardiovascular disease risk, primary healthcare professionals may lack self-efficacy and tools to effectively promote PA in practice. Movement as Medicine for CVD Prevention is a suite...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Physical activity (PA) can reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, and although primary care settings offer a large reach to promote PA and reduce CVD risk, primary health care professionals may lack self-efficacy and tools to effectively promote PA in practice. Movement as Medicine for CVD Prevention is a suite of 2 theory-b...
Article
Full-text available
Background: To achieve real-world impacts, behavior change interventions need to be scaled up and broadly implemented. Implementation is challenging however, and the factors influencing successful implementation are not fully understood. This study describes the nationwide implementation of a complex theory-based program targeting physical activit...
Article
Objective To assess users’ usability, satisfaction, acceptance and effectiveness of the PRECIOUS system to promote behavior change toward healthier lifestyles. Design: Thirty-one adult patients with BMI>30 (M = 44.23, SD = 5.91) were recruited and randomized into three conditions for a longitudinal study (3 months length): 1) Control group (TAU + b...
Preprint
Previous research on work-related motivation and work-related outcomes generally shows that autonomous forms of motivation are associated with higher performance and job satisfaction, whereas controlled forms of motivation are generally linked to worse outcomes. These relationships are largely based on between-persons data from cross-sectional stud...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives While practicing mindfulness can potentially mitigate and prevent mental health problems among adolescents, mindfulness programs delivered in schools do not uniformly lead to uptake of mindfulness practice. This low adherence threatens the internal validity of mindfulness trials and may hinder the alleviation of mental health problems in...
Preprint
Knowledge of how behaviour changes, i.e. the mechanisms underlying the effects of behaviour change interventions, is vital for accumulating valid scientific evidence and informing practice and policy-making across multiple domains. Traditional approaches to such evaluations have applied study designs and statistical models, which implicitly assume...
Preprint
Food Go/No-Go training aims to alter implicit food biases by creating associations between perceiving unhealthy foods and withholding a dominant response. Asking participants to repeatedly inhibit an approach impulse to unhealthy foods can decrease unhealthy food intake in laboratory settings. However, less is known about the engagement with, and e...
Article
Full-text available
Behaviour change techniques describe the content of behaviour change interventions, but do not adequately account for the actions that people must themselves undertake to successfully change or self-manage motivation or behaviour. This paper describes the development of a compendium of self-enactable techniques, combining behaviour- and motivation-...
Article
Full-text available
Go/No-Go tasks, which require participants to inhibit automatic responses to images of palatable foods, have shown diagnostic value in quantifying food-related impulses. Moreover, they have shown potential for training to control impulsive eating. To test the hypothesis that training modulates early neural markers of response inhibition, the curren...
Preprint
Background: Addressing the challenge of scaling up interventions, this paper presents a case study of rolling out an intervention for real-world nationwide implementation. Multiple dimensions of perceived acceptability may predict implementation but so far, this has not been extensively studied. To implement a complex theory-based program to promot...
Preprint
Go/No-Go tasks, which require participants to inhibit automatic responses to images of palatable foods, have shown diagnostic value in quantifying food-related impulses.Moreover, they have shown potential for training to control impulsive eating. To test a suggested hypothesis that training modulates early neural markers of responseinhibition, the...
Article
This study investigates the extent to which achieving goals during behavioral activation (BA) treatment predicts depressive symptom improvement, and whether goal-related cognitions predict goal achievement or treatment response. Patients (n = 110, mean age 37.6, 54% female) received low-intensity cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, which i...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Visualisations and readily-accessible web-based supplementary files can improve data reporting and transparency. In this paper, we make use of recent developments in software and psychological network analysis to describe the baseline cohort of a trial testing the Let’s Move It intervention, which aimed to increase physical activity (PA...
Conference Paper
Background Regular physical activity (PA) has clear benefits for individuals with rheumatic diseases, but PA levels among these individuals consistently fall below recommended levels. While interventions to increase PA are often successful in the short term, these effects are not generally maintained over time. Therefore, to be able to optimally su...
Preprint
Behaviour change techniques describe the content of behaviour change interventions, but do not adequately account for the actions that individuals must themselves undertake to successfully change or self-manage motivation or behaviour. This compendium of 123 self-enactable techniques fills this gap by combining behaviour- and motivation-regulation...
Preprint
THIS IS A LATE DRAFT VERSION OF A MANUSCRIPT TO BE SUBMITTED; freely available here: https://psyarxiv.com/46rzm/. Draft of a supplementary website: https://git.io/fhxvu. Background: Let's Move It is a complex whole-school system intervention aiming to reduce sedentary behaviours (SB) and increase physical activity (PA) among adolescents in vocation...
Article
Full-text available
For mindfulness programs to have sustained benefits, participants should continue to practice mindfulness independently. Behavioral theories have been used to predict and change other health behaviors, but have rarely been applied to mindfulness practice. This research aimed to identify predictors/determinants of sustained mindfulness practice afte...
Preprint
This study investigates the extent to which achieving goals during behavioral activation (BA) treatment predicts depressive symptom improvement, and whether goal-related cognitions predict goal achievement or treatment response. Patients (n = 110, mean age 37.6, 54% female) received low-intensity cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, which i...
Article
Dual-process models integrate deliberative and impulsive mental systems and predict dietary behaviours better than deliberative processes alone. Computerized tasks such as the Go/No-Go, Stop-Signal, Approach-Avoidance, and Evaluative Conditioning have been used as interventions to directly alter implicit biases. This meta-analysis examines the effe...
Article
Full-text available
Background Literature on persuasion suggests compliance increases when requests are accompanied with a reason (i.e. the “because-heuristic”). The reliability of outcomes in physical activity research is dependent on sufficient accelerometer wear-time. This study tested whether SMS reminders—especially those that provided a rationale—are associated...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of exercise and physical activity (PA) promotion on cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, flexibility, neuromotor performance (eg, balance) and daily PA in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), spondyloarthritis (SpA) and hip/knee osteoarthritis (HOA/KOA). Methods systematic review (SR) and meta-analysis...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Background: Increasing physical activity may prevent serious health problems, and active use of self-regulation techniques such as goal setting, self-monitoring and action planning can support higher activity levels. While many smartphone apps offer these self-regulation techniques, few apps offer systematic motivational support for phys...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Most adults do not engage in sufficient physical activity to maintain good health. Smartphone apps are increasingly used to support physical activity but typically focus on tracking behaviors with no support for the complex process of behavior change. Tracking features do not engage all users, and apps could better reach their targets...
Article
Creating active classroom environments and reducing excessive student sitting requires changes in teachers' behaviours. This study examines a teacher training intervention, which aimed to increase the extent to which teachers use strategies to interrupt prolonged periods of students' sitting, as well as strategies to reduce total sitting time. The...
Preprint
Creating active classroom environments and reducing excessive student sitting requires changes in teachers’ behaviours. This study examines a teacher training intervention, which aimed to increase the extent to which teachers use strategies to interrupt prolonged periods of students’ sitting, as well as strategies to reduce total sitting time. The...
Article
Regular physical activity (PA) is increasingly promoted for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases as well as the general population. We evaluated if the public health recommendations for PA are applicable for people with inflammatory arthritis (iA; Rheumatoid Arthritis and Spondyloarthritis) and osteoarthritis (hip/knee OA) in order to...
Conference Paper
Physical activity is generally safe and beneficial for people with rheumatic diseases. Despite this, people with rheumatic diseases commonly engage in physical activity at levels which fall below common recommendations. Recent advances in behavioural science and health psychology offer healthcare professionals new tools and methods for promomting p...
Preprint
[Current version submitted to BMC Public Health.]Background: Literature on persuasion suggests compliance increases when requests are accompanied with a reason (i.e. the “because-heuristic”). The reliability of outcomes in physical activity research is dependent on sufficient accelerometer wear-time. This study tested whether SMS reminders—especial...
Article
Full-text available
Motivation is a proximal determinant of behaviour, and increasing motivation is central to most health behaviour change interventions. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to identify features of physical activity interventions associated with favourable changes in three prominent motivational constructs: intention, stage of change and a...
Preprint
Full-text available
Motivation is a proximal determinant of behavior in many psychological theories, and increasing motivation is central to most behavior change interventions. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to fill a gap in the literature by identifying features of behavior change interventions associated with favorable changes in three prominent mot...
Preprint
Full-text available
Motivation is a proximal determinant of behavior, and increasing motivation is central to most health behavior change interventions. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to identify features of physical activity interventions associated with favorable changes in three prominent motivational constructs: intention, stage of change and auto...
Article
http://epaper.dk/bpfireuma/reuma/reuma-14-fi-maj-2017/
Article
Full-text available
Mobile technologies have great potential to extend the reach and effectiveness of health behaviour change interventions, and while a number of important developments have been realised, mHealth research remains in its infancy. As the EHPS is already quite active in mHealth research, it is well-placed to lead from the front on future innovations in...
Article
Engaging in sufficient levels of physical activity (PA) is of particular importance for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as it can help to maintain functional ability and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. While many healthcare professionals have the ability to effectively promote PA among patients with RA, some techniques common in...
Article
Full-text available
Background: There is an urgent need for interventions which can effectively change behaviours, in order to prevent and reduce the impact of costly chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (WHO, 2014). Smartphones offer a platform for cost-effective and broad implementation, and at the same time, via real-time tracking...
Article
Regular physical activity (PA) benefits patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) - particularly when maintained over time. Research in this area has largely focused on factors associated with initiating PA, while factors contributing to PA maintenance - particularly after lifestyle interventions - have received less attention. This study examined wh...
Article
Full-text available
Methodological guidelines for intervention reporting emphasise describing intervention content in detail. Despite this, systematic reviews of quality improvement (QI) implementation interventions continue to be limited by a lack of clarity and detail regarding the intervention content being evaluated. We aimed to apply the recently developed Behavi...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: To determine whether the integrity of motivational interviewing (MI) delivery relates to short-term changes in physical activity (PA) and regulatory style within a sample of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and to examine whether therapist proficiency in MI improves over time. Methods: During a randomized controlled trial to promote...
Article
Objectives: Psychological interventions can alleviate the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and psychological distress commonly reported among IBS sufferers. However, the theoretical underpinnings and intervention techniques used by such interventions vary considerably. This study aimed to identify which theoretical approaches and techniq...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Correlational evidence suggests that perceived control (PC) and intrinsic motivation (IM), key constructs in social cognitive and self-determination theories, may interact to reinforce behavior change. Purpose: This proof-of-principle study examines the independent and synergistic effects of interventions to increase PC and IM upon d...
Article
Health behaviours and lifestyle factors such as weight management, physical activity, medication adherence and smoking cessation are associated with the progression and impact of osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). While healthcare professionals generally understand the importance of these behavioural and lifestyle factors and make s...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To systematically review and describe currently available approaches to supporting maintenance of weight loss in obese adults and to assess the evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions. Design Systematic review with meta-analysis. Data sources Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials...
Article
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