Background
General Practice consultations are frequently identified as an opportunity to encourage patients to adopt healthier lifestyle behaviours. However, lack of time, maintaining good rapport with patients, and the absence of quality patient resources are commonly cited by community-based clinicians as barriers to discussing weight management and healthy lifestyles with patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether participating in a one-day training program could increase the skills and capacity of community-based clinicians to engage in conversations about weight management and healthy lifestyle behaviours with their patients.
Methods
A one-day professional development program was delivered 12 times in Victoria between June 2017 and March 2019. The attendees (N=161, general practitioners, practice nurses and allied health professionals) completed a pre- (n=136) and post-intervention (n=161) survey and a 12 week follow up (n=59) survey examining their knowledge, skills and confidence to discuss weight management with patients before and after, as well as 12 weeks’ post training. Survey results were analysed to assess changes in knowledge and confidence and whether training impacted participants clinical practice.
Results
161 Health professionals completed the one-day training including 102 working in general practice. 25% had never previously received feedback on their behaviour change conversation skills and 40% had never used motivational interviewing techniques. Following the completion of the training, the topic most reported as useful in practice, was motivational interviewing (66%); it was also the skill most likely to be used (78%). Twelve weeks after the training day, 76% of responding attendees reported they use knowledge gained from the training frequently or daily, and that the most valuable parts of the training were the patient resources provided (59%) and motivational interviewing (57%).
Conclusion
Completion of professional development on weight management appears to increase clinician confidence and skills to discuss weight with their patients.