<i>Partenariat Santé</i>: Results of a Community Program to Improve the Cardiovascular Health among Adult Population

Abstract

Partenariat Sante (PS) launched in Quebec in 2016, is inspired from the Cardiovascular Health Awareness Program (CHAP) and consists of a free session held in the community by students coming from different health sciences programs. The program’s mission is to make available early detection of modifiable CVD risk factors, raise awareness of participants about their impact on CVDs, and promote healthy life changes. In order to gather information to optimize the implementation of this program and eventually to enlarge its implementation to other sites, the first objective of this study was to explore the characteristics of the adult population participating in the PS program and to identify the risk factors they want to modify. The second objective was to evaluate one month later the effective implementation of the action plan elaborated during the motivational interview. The third objective was to evaluate the satisfaction of the participants with the PS program. One hundred ten subjects who attended PS sessions during this period were enrolled in the study. About 30% of participants have blood pressure values ≥ 140/90 mmHg and 40% present a waist circumference associated with higher risk profile. The behaviors to be changed mostly targeted by the participants were physical inactivity and nutrition. A motivational interview was conducted with the elaboration of an action plan to support the behavioral/outcomes changes. Sixty participants (54.5%) completed the questionnaire in the one-month follow-up. Forty-one (68.3%) participants revealed that they had put their action plans into practice, while 63.3% claimed that they mostly reached their objectives. Motivation remains high after one month for participants who put their action plans in place (7.8 ± 1.9 versus 7.4 ± 1.6; p = 0.214), whereas it decreased significantly for those who did not (6.8 ± 2.1 versus 5.8 ± 2.0; p = 0.029). The majority of them agreed that PS program was useful (75%) and led them to change their lifestyle related to cardiovascular health (62%). In conclusion, our results suggest that the PS program can produce benefits on the promotion of cardiovascular health in the community adult population, being evaluated as useful to change the lifestyle related to CVD risk.