Local residents chosen to SNAP out of risky lifestyles
31 August 2009
If you get a phone call from someone asking if you would like to participate in a new healthy lifestyle trial, don’t hang up!
Chances are it isn’t a telemarketer, but Maureen Hilkmann, the Recruitment Officer involved in a new trial being run as a collaboration between Hunter New England Health and the University of NSW Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity.
Community Health nurses in the Lower Hunter are taking part in the initiative and recruiters for the trial hope to encourage eligible community health patients in Cessnock, Kurri Kurri, Singleton, Maitland and Dungog areas to participate.
Recruitment starts this week.
The 2½- year study will examine the effectiveness of brief intervention around lifestyle risks by community health nurses during their routine practice.
The lifestyle risks focus on Smoking, Nutrition, Alcohol and Physical Activity, or ‘SNAP’.
Local investigator for Hunter New England Health’s Lower Hunter Cluster, Sue Buckman, said reducing lifestyle risks was the key to the prevention and management of chronic disease, including diabetes and heart disease
“Clients aged 30-80 years referred to see a community nurse in participating areas may be invited to take part in the study,” said Ms Buckman, who is also Community Health Manager at Cessnock.
“Eligible clients will be contacted at the time of referral and invited to complete a 15-minute telephone interview prior to the first visit by the nurse and again after three and six months.”
Ms Buckman said participation in the trial and information collected would be confidential. Community health nurses will not know which of their clients are participating in the trial and which are not.
“As standard practice, the community health nurses will ask clients about their lifestyle habits such as smoking, nutrition, alcohol use and physical activity and offer assistance to those interested in making positive changes to their lifestyle.
“The study aims to find out how effective community nursing intervention can be in helping clients change their lifestyle,” Ms Buckman said.
Project Manager with the Research Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, Rachel Laws, said the project was all about supporting people to make positive lifestyle change and develop healthy habits, regardless of their age.
“Community nurses are well placed to help clients with lifestyle change as they usually see them regularly over a period of a few weeks or months,” Ms Laws said.
“They also visit clients in their home, which gives them access to people who may not be regular users of health services, and their caseload often includes people with diabetes and other chronic diseases who have much to benefit from lifestyle risk factor management.”
Community nurses in Newcastle and parts of Wollongong and South Western Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands are also involved in the trial.
The project is aiming to recruit 300 people in the Lower Hunter area and a total of 1200 community health clients across all participating sites.
DID YOU KNOW:
• In Australia, lifestyle choices have been estimated to account for 32% of the total disease burden
• Results of the 2007-2008 national health survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that the most common risk factors were those related to nutrition, with over 90% of adults not meeting the recommended serves of vegetables, over half not consuming adequate amounts of fruit and 62% being overweight or obese. Around one third of adults were classified as physically inactive, one in five (20%) smoked and of the 59% of the population who drank alcohol, 21% did so at a level which would pose a risk to their health.
• The overall costs of smoking, alcohol and obesity to the health care systems has been estimated at almost $6 billion per year, while lost productivity is estimated at $13 billion
• The World Health Organisation estimates that 80% of cardiovascular disease, 90% of type 2 diabetes and 30% of all cancers could be prevented if lifestyle risk factors were eliminated
Media Inquiries: for media enquiries about the Lower Hunter trial, contact Frances Holz, 4939 2216 or 0432 000 087. For further information or enquiries about the Community Nursing SNAP project generally, please contact Rachel Laws on 9385 1488 or 0432 388 593. (HNE-1976)
Contact: Frances Holz
Phone: 4939 2216