Abstract
Background: Brief behavioural interventions offered by healthcare professionals to target health behavioural risk factors (e.g. physical activity, diet, smoking and drug and alcohol use) can positively impact patient health outcomes. The Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) Making Every Contact Count (MECC) Programme supports healthcare professionals to offer patients brief opportunistic behavioural interventions during routine consultations. The potential for MECC to impact public health depends on its uptake and implementation. Aim: This protocol outlines the 'Making MECC Work' research programme, a HSE/Health Behaviour Change Research Group collaboration to develop an implementation strategy to optimise uptake of MECC in Ireland. The programme will answer three research questions: (1) What determines delivery of MECC brief interventions by healthcare professionals at individual and organisational levels? (2) What are patient attitudes towards, and experiences of, receiving MECC interventions from healthcare professionals? (3) What evidence-informed implementation strategy options can be consensually developed with key stakeholders to optimise MECC implementation? Methods: In Work Package 1, we will examine determinants of MECC delivery by healthcare professionals using a multi-methods approach, including: (WP1.1) a national survey of healthcare professionals who have participated in MECC eLearning training and (WP1.2) a qualitative interview study with relevant healthcare professionals and HSE staff. In Work Package 2, we will examine patient attitudes towards, and experiences of, MECC using qualitative interviews. Work Package 3 will combine findings from Work Packages 1 and 2 using the Behaviour Change Wheel to identify and develop testable implementation strategy options (WP 3.1). Strategies will be refined and prioritised using a key stakeholder consensus process to develop a collaborative implementation blueprint to optimise and scale-up MECC (WP3.2). Discussion: Research programme outputs are expected to positively support the integration of MECC brief behaviour change interventions into the Irish healthcare system and inform the scale-up of behaviour change interventions internationally.
Highlights
Increasing rates of chronic disease are a key global societal challenge
Making Every Contact Count (MECC) has the potential for significant impact on the prevention and management of chronic disease by integrating brief interventions to support health behaviour change into these millions of contacts that healthcare professionals have with members of the public each year
Our research partnership brings together academic researchers with implementation and health psychology expertise, knowledge users with strategic and context-specific knowledge, patient and public contributors and healthcare professionals to optimise the implementation of the MECC in the Irish Health Service
Summary
Increasing rates of chronic disease are a key global societal challenge. Chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, are the leading global cause of disability and are responsible for 70% of deaths worldwide (World Health Organization, 2017). Chronic diseases in Ireland are associated with 86% of mortality and 77% of the overall disease burden and patients with chronic diseases presently utilise around 70% of health resources (Department of Health, 2012) This burden of chronic disease is likely to increase over time due to aging populations in Ireland, and internationally. The Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) Making Every Contact Count (MECC) Programme supports healthcare professionals to offer patients brief opportunistic behavioural interventions during routine consultations. Aim: This protocol outlines the ‘Making MECC Work’ research programme, a HSE/Health Behaviour Change Research Group collaboration to develop an implementation strategy to optimise uptake of MECC in Ireland. Discussion: Research programme outputs are expected to positively support the integration of MECC brief behaviour change interventions into the Irish healthcare system and inform the scale-up of behaviour change interventions internationally
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