Improving Health Behaviors Through Telephone Linked Care

American Academy of Family Physicians

Status

Completed

Conditions

Physical Activity

Alcohol Abuse

Smoking

Diet

Treatments

Behavioral: Telephone-linked behavioral counseling

Behavioral: Telephone Linked Care - Behavior Change Counseling System

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT00314197

06-005

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigators propose to conduct a randomized controlled trial at the patient level of the Telephone Linked Care - Behavioral Change (TLC-BC) system, which is designed to promote smoking cessation, reduce risky drinking, and improve physical activity and diet. They expect to:

successfully integrate an automated telephone behavior change intervention into primary care practices;
demonstrate improvement in health behaviors for individuals randomized (assigned by systematic chance) to use the TLC-BC system compared to individuals who receive written health education informational packets; and
evaluate the direct costs associated with the use and operation of the TLC-BC system.

Project aims and hypotheses follow:

Aim 1: Integrate a proven, totally automated computer telephone intervention, Telephone Linked Care - Behavior Change (TLC-BC), into primary care practices. This will be assessed by the patient and clinician/staff surveys at the end of data collection.

Aim 2: Demonstrate an improvement in health behaviors for individuals randomized to use the TLC-BC system compared to individuals who receive written informational packets.

Aim 3: Evaluate the direct costs associated with the use and operation of the TLC-BC system within the primary care setting.

Hypothesis 1: The Telephone Linked Care - Behavioral Change system will be successfully implemented by patients and practices.

Hypothesis 2: At 6 months a clinically significant improvement in behavioral change rates will be demonstrated for diet, physical activity, and smoking in the intervention group compared to patients in the control group.

Hypothesis 3: At baseline, 3, 6, and 9 months risky drinking will be identified, but there will be no difference in improvement between the study groups.

Full description

See above

Enrollment

400 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18+ years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

18 years or older
Capable of giving informed consent
Reliable access to a phone
Able to read English

Exclusion criteria

Less than 18 years of age
Not capable of giving informed consent
No reliable access to a phone
Unable to read English (including blindness)
Too ill to participate
Not willing to allow the Telephone Linked Care - Behavior Change system to provide health information reports based on responses to physician