Feasibility of a Preventive Program Against Lifestyle Related Diseases

Summary

The continuously increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, and COPD is a major health problem in developed countries and is mainly caused by an unhealthy lifestyle. Most important lifestyle related causes of morbidity and mortality are smoking, obesity and physical inactivity, and increasing rates of obesity and physical inactivity in combination with smoking will lead to an increase in the number of patients with lifestyle related diseases in the coming decades. There is, therefore, an urgent need to identify and establish strategies and to implement interventions, allowing for the identification and management of citizens at increased risk of disease.

Two recent systematic reviews of general practice based health checks suggest that people at increased risk of a chronic disease may benefit from a targeted approach to health checks. Targeted or selective preventive actions are a generally accepted and well integrated part of the health care system (e.g. treatment of hypertension and hyperlipidemia). However, selective prevention is challenged in terms of how to identify citizens at increased risk of disease in the general population in order to start the indicated preventive actions.

The aim of the present pilot study is to test the acceptability, feasibility and short-term effect of a selective preventive program that systematically helps citizens evaluate individual risk of lifestyle related disease and offers targeted and coordinated preventive services in the primary health care sector.

The intervention comprises four elements: 1) Systematic collection of information on lifestyle risk factors using questionnaire 2) Risk estimation and stratification into risk groups based on questionnaire data and information from the electronic patient record (EPR) using validated risk estimation models, 3) An individual electronic health profile with personalized advise on lifestyle change and 4) targeted preventive services at the general practitioner (GP) or the municipality for citizens at risk of lifestyle disease and citizens with risk behavior, respectively.

The intervention is supported by a patient-centered health information system that facilitates informed patient action and integrates general practice and municipality health care providers.

Conditions

• Type-2 Diabetes
• Cardiovascular Diseases
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Lifestyle intervention

1\) Systematic collection of information on lifestyle risk factors using questionnaire 2) Risk estimation and stratification into risk groups based on questionnaire data and information from the electronic patient record (EPR) using validated risk estimation models, 3) An individual electronic health profile with personalized advise on lifestyle change and 4) targeted preventive services incl. lifestyle counseling at the GP or the municipality for citizens at increased risk of lifestyle disease and citizens with risk behavior, respectively.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Oslo

  collaborator OTHER

• Lund University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Southern Denmark

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jens Søndergaard · Research Unit of General Practice, Dept. of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense C, Denmark

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

30 Years

Max Age

59 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-09-30

Primary Completion

2017-02-28

Completion

2017-12-31

Countries

• Denmark
• Norway
• Sweden

Study Locations