The Effects of Health Coaching for Frequent Attenders (HCFA)

The Effectiveness of Health Coaching for Frequent Attenders in the Primary Healthcare

The purpose of the study was to describe and evaluate the effectiveness of health coaching on health-related quality of life, adherence to health regimens, clinical health outcomes and lifestyle factors among frequent attenders in primary healthcare.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Health Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: The nurse-led health coaching program

Detailed Description

The quasi-experimental research method evaluated the effectiveness of health coaching among frequent attenders in primary healthcare. The experimental group received the health coaching and the control group received the usual care. The data were collected with pre- and posttest 12-month follow-up via a questionnaire of FINRISKI2012, RAND-36 and ACDI and clinical health outcomes measured by health-coaching nurses. The data were analyzed by statistical methods.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 110
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients who had face-to-face visits to the physicians in the local primary healthcare centre at least seven times during a 12-month period
• Aged 18 years or older
• Able to read and understand Finnish

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients´ visits due to pregnancy or delivery
• Patients´ visits due to serial treatment for the same disease
• An inability to give informed consent
• Involving in another study intervention at the same time

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: The health coaching group; The experimental group (n = 52) consisted of frequent attenders who had chosen the health-coaching program. The intervention was based on the customized nurse-led health-coaching program. The program consisted of an individual health-coaching nurse, health-coaching sessions and a written action plan according to each participant´s individual needs.	Other: The nurse-led health coaching program; The intervention was based on the customized nurse-led health-coaching program. The program consisted of an individual health-coaching nurse, health-coaching sessions and a written action plan according to each participant´s individual needs.
No Intervention: The control group; The control group consisted of 58 frequent attenders. They, along with the experimental group, received the usual care regarding their health problems from the physicians and nurses at the primary healthcare centres if they needed it. The usual care for frequent attenders included assessment for the need of treatment, physical examination, problem assessment, laboratory and X-ray tests, medical advice and patient support and education during their visits.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The health-related quality of life	The health-related quality of life was measured using the validated Finnish version of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey 1.0 (RAND-36). The 36-item self-report instrument consists of eight separate scales of quality of life: (1) physical functioning (10 items), (2) physical role functioning (four items), (3) emotional role functioning (three items), (4) social role functioning (two items), (5) bodily pain (two items), (6) mental health (five items), (7) energy (four items) and (8) general health (five items). The scores were calculated in a two-step process using the instructions provided by Ware et al. (1994) in the user´s manual. First, all items were scored on a scale from 0 to 100. A higher score defines a better health or function. Second, items in the same scale were averaged together to create the eight scale scores. Scale scores represented the average for all items in the scale.	12 months
Adherence to health regimens	Adherence was measured using the Adherence of People with Chronic Disease Instrument (ACDI) (Kyngäs, 1999), a 38-item self-report instrument that has been used to measure adherence to health regimens among people with chronic disease	12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Lifestyle factors	The secondary outcomes were lifestyle factors. The baseline and follow-up questionnaires gathered data on the frequent attenders' alcohol consumption, smoking behaviour, and physical activity. They were based on a customized variant of the national FINRISK 2012 questionnaire	12 months

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The clinical health outcomes: Weight	Weight in kilograms (kg)	12 months
The clinical health outcomes: Height	Height in meters (m)	12 months
The clinical health outcomes: Body mass index (BMI)	Weight and height will be combined to report BMI in kg/m^2	12 months
The clinical health outcomes: Blood pressure	Blood pressure were measured using systolic and diastolic blood pressure in mmHg.	12 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Oulu
• Investigators: Study Director: Maria Kääriäinen, Professor, University of Oulu

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (Actual): February 1, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): December 31, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 16, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 21, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): October 22, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 22, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 21, 2019
• Last Verified: October 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: primary health care; coaching
• Other Study ID Numbers: Uoulu2014

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No