Abstract

Does a holistic lifestyle intervention program improve health-related quality of life and psychological wellbeing in adults at diabetes risk?

Author(s): Katharina Wennehorst*, Klas Mildenstein, Brunhild Saliger, Thomas Keil & Heike Englert

Background: While numerous studies have shown the beneficial effects of lifestyle intervention on clinical and laboratory parameters in persons at elevated diabetes and cardio-vascular risk, research on the impact of lifestyle intervention on health-related quality of life and psychological wellbeing is scarce. Objectives: We examined the effect of a holistic 8-week long lifestyle intervention program compared to care-as-usual on health-related quality of life and psychological wellbeing in adults with diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial in a primary care setting in Hannover, Germany, with 83 participants who were either (pre) diabetic or at risk for diabetes (intervention group: n=43 aged (mean ± SD) 50.1 ± 6.1 years, control group: n=40 aged 53.3 ± 10.3 years). CHIP Germany is an 8-week coaching lifestyle intervention program including comprehensive nutritional and health education for primary and secondary prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. The primary outcome of the present analysis was health-related quality of life and psychological wellbeing after 12 months, assessed by the SF-12 and the W-BQ 22 Questionnaires, respectively. Results: After 12 months, in the intervention group no effect was seen on the SF-12 physical and mental component summary scores and the wellbeing-related scores, compared to controls. Small improvements in health-related quality of life and wellbeing were observed directly after the 8-week intervention; these changes, however, were not clinically relevant. Conclusion: For persons at diabetes and cardiovascular risk, the 8-week CHIP lifestyle intervention program showed small improvements on health-related quality of life and wellbeing only directly after the 8-week intervention period, but not 12 months after the intervention.