WePrevent
Conceptual development of the self-activity phase of a prevention programme to improvement of sustainability
Hintergrund
The aim of prevention is to prevent illness and damage to health, as well as to minimize the risk of illness or delay its occurrence. Patients should discontinue certain behavioral patterns that are detrimental to their health and fundamentally and sustainably change their living conditions so that they remain employable and able to work in the long term. The RV Fit prevention program (formerly Betsi) is divided into three phases (the duration of the phases can vary depending on the facility and the state) and then ends with a “refresher day” - a refresher course to reactivate the learned contents and to motivate participants for the future. Unfortunately, the final refresher session is only accepted by relatively few participants, so that the long-term anchoring of health-promoting behavior is at risk.
The research project was funded by DRV Westfalen and scientifically accompanied and evaluated by the IFR Ulm.
The phases of the prevention programme
Initial phase
Presentation of preventive measures in the clinic and assessment of health status.
Training phase
Realization of the preventive measures in the clinic (3 months).
Self-activity phase
Autonomous implementation of the measures in everyday life (6 months).
Refresher Day
Refreshing of the learned contents and discussion of open questions.
Objective
The study examines reasons for the low participation rate of the “refresher day. The main objective was to examine whether support in the self-activity phase through additional face-to-face appointments at the rehabilitation facility or through the Caspar Health software could increase the refresher rate. In addition, work ability, health status as well as conditional and coordinative abilities etc. were also analyzed.
Methods
The study will be conducted at ZAR medicos.AufSchalke. The (partially) randomized controlled trial assigns the participants to three groups to be studied:
1
Control group
The self-activity phase is carried out independently and unaccompanied (classical procedure).
2
Presence-intervention group
The self-activity phase is carried out accompanied in 14-day presence appointments.
3
Online intervention group
Use of the Caspar software to carry out the preventive program during the self-activity phase.
The primary outcome parameter is the participation rate at the refresher appointment. The participants' conditional (e.g. heart rate, blood pressure) and coordinative abilities (balance test) are recorded before the training phase, after the training phase and after the self-activity phase. In addition, further aspects such as work ability (WAI), health behavior and condition (e.g. IRES-3), work-related behavior and experience patterns (AVEM) as well as existing risk factors and treatment satisfaction (ZUF-8) are surveyed.
Results
Recruitment took place between May 2019 and March 2022, resulting in a number of 339 participants. The follow-up surveys will be completed at the end of 2022. The three interim reports are available to DRV Westfalen but have not been published.
Conclusion
DRV Westfalen has extended the study by six months, so that the project will end on March 28, 2023, and the final results report will be available at that time.
Literature: Registered in the german clinical trials register - DRKS-ID of the study: DRKS00017461
