'Making every contact count': Evaluation of the impact of an intervention to train health and social care practitioners in skills to support health behaviour change.
A total of 148 health and social care practitioners were trained in skills to support behaviour change: creating opportunities to discuss health behaviours, using open discovery questions, listening, reflecting and goal-setting. At three time points post-training, use of the skills was evaluated and compared with use of skills by untrained practitioners. Trained practitioners demonstrated significantly greater use of these client-centred skills to support behaviour change compared to their untrained peers up to 1 year post-training. Because it uses existing services to deliver support for behaviour change, this training intervention has the potential to improve public health at relatively low cost.
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK wtl@mrc.soton.ac.uk.
Wendy
W
Lawrence
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK.
Christina
C
Black
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK.
Tannaze
T
Tinati
NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, UK.
Sue
S
Cradock
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, UK.
Rufia
R
Begum
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, UK.
Megan
M
Jarman
School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, UK.
Anna
A
Pease
Primary Care and Population Sciences, University of Southampton, UK.
Barrie
B
Margetts
Public Health Team NHS Southampton City, UK.
Jenny
J
Davies
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK.
Hazel
H
Inskip
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre, Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, UK.
Cyrus
C
Cooper
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK.
Janis
J
Baird
MRC LEU, University of Southampton, UK.
Mary
M
Barker
D003142:Communication; D015438:Health Behavior; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health
Healthy Conversation Skills; behaviour change; evaluation; health and social care practitioners; intervention; public health; training