Promoting lifestyle self-awareness among the medical team by the use of an integrated teaching approach: a primary care experience.
OBJECTIVE
Healthy lifestyle is recommended in clinical guidelines for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Research previously identified a gap between lifestyle recommendations and their implementation in clinical practice. In this paper, we describe a pilot educational program aimed to promote providers' awareness of their own lifestyles, and to explore whether increased personal awareness enhances providers' willingness to engage in lifestyle-change discussion with patients.


METHODS
Two primary-care urban clinics in Northern Israel participated in the program, which consisted of a series of six biweekly educational sessions, each lasting 2-4 hours. Each session included both knowledge-based and experiential learning based on complementary medicine modalities. Surveys at the end of the program and a year later provided the program evaluation.


RESULTS
Thirty-five personnel participated in the program. Thirteen (13) of the 20 participants (65%) reported an attitude change regarding eating habits after the program. At 1-year follow up, 24 of the 27 respondents (89%) stated that they were more aware of their eating habits and of their physical activity compared with precourse status. Twenty-three (23) of 27 respondents (85%) stated that after the program they were better prepared to initiate a conversation with their patients about lifestyle change.


CONCLUSIONS
An integrated educational approach based on knowledge-based and complementary and alternative medicine experiential modalities, aimed to facilitate self-awareness, may enhance learners' attitude change. The findings demonstrate readiness of learners to reexamine their lifestyles. Increased self-awareness helped participants to make a positive attitude change regarding eating habits and physical activity and was associated with participants' increased engagement in lifestyle-change discussions with patients. The teaching approach had longstanding effect, noted in the one-year follow-up.
Ben-Arye
Eran
E
The Complementary and Traditional Medicine Unit, Department of Family Medicine, Clalit Health Services, Haifa and Western Galilee District, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. eranben@netvision.net.il
Lear
Adva
A
Hermoni
Doron
D
Margalit
Ruth Stashefsky
RS
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D015444:Exercise; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008503:Medical Staff / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013192:Staff Development / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population