A Randomised Controlled Trial to Evaluate the Administration of the Health Improvement Card as a Health Promotion Tool: A Physiotherapist-Led Community-Based Initiative

Yiwen Bai, Xubo Wu, Raymond CC Tsang, Ruisheng Yun, Yan Lu, Elizabeth Dean and Alice YM Jones
Additional contact information
Yiwen Bai: Department of Physical Therapy, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China
Xubo Wu: Department of Physical Therapy, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China
Raymond CC Tsang: Department of Physiotherapy, MacLehose Rehabilitation Centre, Hong Kong, China
Ruisheng Yun: Department of Physical Therapy, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China
Yan Lu: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Seventh People’s Hospital of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200137, China
Elizabeth Dean: Department of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada
Alice YM Jones: School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: A randomised controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the administration of the Health Improvement Card (HIC) on lifestyle practices and biometric variables in community-dwelling Chinese participants. Adults living in Shanghai were randomly assigned to either the HIC-intervention or control group. Measurements/assessments were conducted at baseline and three-month follow-up. Supervised physiotherapy students administered the HIC and four standardised questionnaires related to health and wellbeing. Both groups received a health promotion education pamphlet. Based on participants’ HIC biometric and lifestyle scores, students prescribed lifestyle, and exercise advice to the HIC-intervention group. 171 individuals (39 men, 132 women) (mean age 68.4 ± 9.7 y) participated. At follow-up, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference decreased significantly in the HIC-intervention group. Furthermore, the number of participants in the HIC-intervention group categorised as low risk regarding their physical activity and dietary practices, increased by 32.2% and 20%, respectively. Changes in standardised questionnaire scores did not meet minimum clinically importance differences in either group. This is the first study to demonstrate that HIC-informed health promotion education can improve people’s lifestyle practices, thereby, objective biometric variables. Evaluation of the effect of HIC-informed lifestyle education on some biometric parameters (blood pressure and BMI) may warrant a longer timeframe.

Keywords: Health Improvement Card; Chinese community-dwelling adults; physiotherapy-led health education strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8065/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/8065/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:8065-:d:438784

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().