Open Research Newcastle
Browse

Better health choices: feasability and preliminary effectiveness of a peer delivered healthy lifestyle intervention in a community mental health setting

Download (527.25 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2025-05-09, 17:50 authored by Peter J. Kelly, Amanda L. Baker, Camilla Townsend, Briony A. Osborne, Adam Zimmermann, Naomi L. Fagan, Alyna Turner, Frank Deane, Rebecca McKetin, Robin CallisterRobin Callister, Clare CollinsClare Collins, Isabella Ingram, Keren Wolstencroft
Background: To reduce smoking and improve other health behaviours of people living with severe mental illness, healthy lifestyle interventions have been recommended. One approach to improving the availability of these types of interventions is to utilise the mental health peer workforce. The current study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of peer-workers facilitating a telephone delivered healthy lifestyle intervention within community based mental health settings. The study also examined preliminary outcomes of the intervention. Methods: The study was conducted as a randomised controlled feasibility trial. In addition to treatment as usual, participants randomised to the Treatment Condition were offered BHC. This was an 8-session telephone delivered coaching intervention that encouraged participants to decrease their smoking, increase their intake of fruit and vegetables, and reduce their leisure screen time. Participants in the waitlist Control Condition continued to complete treatment as usual. All participants were engaged with Neami National, an Australian community mental health organisation. Peer-workers were also current employees of Neami National. Results: Forty-three participants were recruited. The average number of sessions completed by participants in the Treatment Condition was 5.7 (SD = 2.6; out of 8-sessions). Seventeen participants (77%) completed at least half of the sessions, and nine participants (40%) completed all eight sessions. Participant satisfaction was high, with all participants followed up rating the quality of the service they received as 'good' or 'excellent'. When compared to the Control Condition, people in the Treatment Condition demonstrated greater treatment effects on smoking and leisure screen time. There was only a negligible effect on servings of fruit and vegetable. Conclusions: Results were promising regarding the feasibility of peer-workers delivering BHC. Good retention rates and high consumer satisfaction ratings in the Treatment Condition demonstrated that peer-workers were capable of delivering the intervention to the extent that consumers found it beneficial. The current results suggest that a sufficiently powered, peer delivered randomised controlled trial of BHC is warranted.

History

Journal title

Addictive Behaviors

Volume

103

Issue

April 2020

Article number

106249

Publisher

Elsevier

Language

  • en, English

College/Research Centre

Faculty of Health and Medicine

School

School of Medicine and Public Health

Rights statement

© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Usage metrics

    Publications

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC