The impact of the multicomponent "Healthy and Vital" 3-month lifestyle intervention in health professionals: a single group pre-(multiple) post-study.

Background: Working in healthcare often involves stressful situations and a high workload, and many healthcare workers experience burnout complaints or suffer from mental or physical problems. This also affects the overall quality of health care. Many previous workplace interventions focused on knowledge exchange instead of other health cognitions, and were not particularly effective. Multicomponent lifestyle interventions may offer the potential in improving lifestyle and well-being of healthcare professionals. This study aims to evaluate the impact of a multicomponent lifestyle intervention "Healthy and Vital" for healthcare professionals on several health-related outcomes.

Methods: A pre- (multiple) post-pilot study has been conducted using data from 2012 to 2018 to evaluate the lifestyle intervention in 126 female healthcare professionals. Measurements were conducted before, directly after the intervention (at 3 months), and 6 months after finishing the intervention (at 9 months). Participants filled out questionnaires and anthropometrics measurements were conducted by a dietitian. The intervention is based on the ASE-model, theory of planned behavior, and motivational interviewing techniques. The intervention included workshops related to stress, eating, sleep, and individual meetings with a dietitian. Multilevel linear mixed models with a random intercept and fixed slope were used to evaluate the impact on lifestyle self-efficacy, eating behavior, anthropometric outcomes and quality of life.

Results: Improvements were observed for lifestyle self-efficacy (total: beta= 1.32 95%CI 0.94;1.48, I know: beta= 1.19 95%CI 0.92;1.46, and I can: beta= 1.46 95%CI 1.19;1.73), eating behavior (emotional eating: beta=-0.33 95%CI-0.44;-0.23, external eating: beta=-0.35 95%CI -0.44;-0.26, and diet/restrictive behavior: beta= 0.41 95%CI 0.30;0.51), anthropometric outcomes (weight: beta=-5.03 95%CI -5.93;-4.12, BMI: beta=-1.873 95%CI -2.06;-1.41, waist circumference: beta=-6.83 95%CI -8.00;-5.65, and body fat percentage: beta=-1.80 95%CI -2.48;-1.17) and multiple outcomes of quality of life (physical functioning: beta= 4.43 95%CI 1.98;6.88, vitality: beta= 7.58 95%CI 4.74;10.42, pain: beta=4.59 95%CI 0.91;1.827, general health perception: beta= 7.43 95%CI 4.79;10.07, and health change: beta= 21.60 95%CI 16.41;28.80) directly after the intervention. The improvements remained after a six-month follow-up.

Conclusions: Multicomponent interventions such as "Healthy and Vital" for healthcare professionals may be useful for improving the health of healthcare workers. More research using other designs with a control group, such as a stepped-wedge or RCT, is needed to verify our findings.

Trial Registration: Retrospectively registered on May 1 2024 at the Open Science Framework Registries ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Z9VU5 ).