Increasing Health-Promoting Behaviors and Health Education Efficacy Among Clinical Staff

Abstract

Reducing rates of overweight and obesity is now an international health priority. Nonphysician clinical staff are uniquely well positioned to deliver or support the delivery of interventions to promote health behaviors in Americans. Yet levels of health-promoting behaviors among clinical staff are not higher than in the general population. Moreover, clinical staff often feel unprepared to encourage health-promoting behaviors among their patients. The Clinical Staff Health-Smart Behavior Program (CS-HSBP) is an employment site-based health promotion program to increase health-promoting behaviors among health care clinical staff members. The major aims of this study are to examine whether training clinical staff to implement the CS-HSBP with a group of peers increased (a) participants’ engagement in health-promoting behaviors, and (b) participants’ sense of efficacy at educating patients on health-promoting behaviors, the percentage of patients participants educated on health-promoting behaviors, and participants’ sense of themselves as healthy lifestyle role models for their patients. Participants were 66 clinical staff members at a university-affiliated outpatient health center. Results indicate that the CS-HSBP was effective at increasing staff’s engagement in health responsibility, healthy eating, and physical activity and also staff’s perception of their capability of educating patients and their perception of themselves as role models to their patients. Results also show no significant effect of the program on stress management and the percentage of patients educated by clinical staff. Study limitations and implications for future implementation of clinical staff-focused wellness programs are discussed.