Abstract:
Introduction: The purpose of this pilot quantitative study was to examine the impact of a 6 week Occupational Therapy Based Health Promotion Program (OTBHPP) on adults who would like to improve quality of life and manage their weight. As recent as 2008, the CDC estimated that the medical cost of people who were obese was $1,400 higher than people of normal weight costing a total of $147 billion dollars (CDC, Adult Obesity Facts, 2016). The effectiveness of a OTBHPP called Lifestyle Redesign has been shown to significantly improve the quality of life and functioning of the in previous Well Elderly Studies (Clark F. J.-M., 2011). This OTBHPP may have the capacity to produce similar results in a younger population who would like to improve quality of life and address weight management.
Methods: The researcher used flyers and recruitment strategies that were purposive sampling, convenience sampling, and snowball sampling. The participants were college students at North Central College. The participants attended one 60-minute session per week over a six-week period. The program consisted of 8 educational modules focused on weight management adapted from the modules presented in Clark, et al., (2015), including occupations, time management, stress management strategies, physical activity dining, nutrition, relationships and thriving. Utilized RAND SF-36 to measure the quantitative data gathered in this study. The assessments were scored per the instructions provided with the assessment. Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Once the assessments were scored the researchers calculated the mean and standard deviation for each health domain scale.
Conclusion: Utilizing an OT intervention that would address the person holistically could prove beneficial in improving the overall quality of life and engagement in occupation. Furthermore, several modifiable risk factors were addressed through an OTBHPP. The results indicate that the participants have a high level of physical health and there may be other domains of their health that are impacting their energy/fatigue levels. These results lead researchers to conclude that the subjects were able to increase the ability to engage in meaningful activities. Furthermore, the results of the follow-up assessments demonstrate improvements despite not being involved in the intervention for approximately three weeks. The habits and routines through occupation appear to improve quality of life and ability to engage in meaningful activity.
Implications: This study supports the use of the use of an Occupational Therapy Based Health Promotion Program focused on Quality of life and weight management. With continued studies in this field, it may be possible to demonstrate Occupational Therapist skill set using group intervention and eventually get reimbursed by all insurance companies.
Results: The pre-intervention average total score for is 684.3 and the standard deviation is 97.8. The average total score after the six sessions was 768.1 (out of 800) and the standard deviation is 9.3. The results indicated an increase in the ability to function without a change in physical health. The results approximately 21 days after the completion of the 6-week intervention average total score for the follow-up was 706.3, and the standard deviation was 59.9.
