The effects of a nurse-led lifestyle intervention program on cardiovascular risk, self-efficacy and health promoting behaviours among patients with metabolic syndrome : randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Background: Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of cardio-metabolic risk factors and a major burden for public health due to its increasing prevalence and adverse effects on cardiovascular health. Lifestyle modification is the first-line intervention for metabolic syndrome management. However, adopting healthy behaviours is challenging among patients with metabolic syndrome. Objective: To examine the effects of a nurse-led lifestyle intervention program on cardiovascular risks, self-efficacy and the implementation of health promoting behaviours. Design: A two-armed randomized controlled trial. Settings and Participants: A total of 173 patients that satisfied the metabolic syndrome definition of International Diabetes Federation was recruited from a hospital in North China. Methods: The participants were randomly assigned to either attend the lifestyle interventions (n = 86) or receive usual care from the study hospital (n = 87). The lifestyle intervention followed the framework of Health Promotion Model and consisted of one face-to-face education session (30–40 min), one educational booklet and six telephone follow-ups (bi-weekly, 20–30 min per call) in three months. The Framingham 10-year risk score was calculated to measure the participants’ cardiovascular risks at baseline and 3-month. The Self-rated Abilities for Health Practices and Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II was employed to measure the self-efficacy and health promoting behaviours at baseline, 1-month, and 3-month. The generalized estimating equation model was employed to examine the effects of the lifestyle intervention program. Results: No difference was detected in the baseline characteristics between the two groups. Decreased cardiovascular risk was found in the lifestyle intervention group, but no significant group-by-time effect was detected. The self-efficacy for nutrition, stress dimension and sum score of health promoting behaviours revealed significant improvements at 1-month (all p < 0.05). Significant improvements were also detected in all subscales, total scale of self-efficacy, all dimensions and the sum score of health promoting behaviours at 3-month (all p < 0.05). Conclusions: The nurse-led Health Promotion Model guided lifestyle intervention program effectively improved the self-efficacy and implementation of health promoting behaviours in patients with metabolic syndrome. We recommend that nurses apply lifestyle interventions in routine care for patients with metabolic syndrome. Tweetable abstract: The RCT revealed that nurse-led lifestyle intervention was effective to improve self-efficacy and healthy behaviours among 173 MetS patients.