ABSTRACT
Background: Practicing a health-promoting lifestyle is believed to be effective for delaying or preventing the onset of diabetes. However, although empowerment interventions have proven effective for encouraging the adoption of a health-promoting lifestyle in people with diabetes, these interventions are rarely promoted to people with prediabetes.
Purpose: The aims of this study were to develop an empowerment program for people with prediabetes and to examine its efficacy in terms of the adoption of a health-promoting lifestyle and improvements in blood sugar, body mass index, and self-efficacy.
Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted between May and December 2013. A convenience sample of people with a fasting blood sugar level of 100-125 mg/dl during the previous 3 months was recruited from the health examination center of a hospital in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Participants were assigned to either the experimental group or the control group using block randomization with a block size of 8. The experimental group (n = 38) participated in a 4-month empowerment program (the ABC empowerment program), which encouraged participants to practice a health-promoting lifestyle in three phases: awareness raising, behavior building, and results checking. The control group (n = 40) received routine clinical care. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, independent t test, paired t test, and generalized estimated equations.
Results: After controlling for the differences at baseline and considering the interaction between group and time from baseline to 1 week and 3 months after completing the intervention, the generalized estimating equation showed significantly larger improvements in a health-promoting lifestyle, blood sugar, and self-efficacy in the experimental group than in the control group (p < .01). Furthermore, the experimental group achieved a larger reduction in body mass index than the control group at 3 months after completing the intervention (p = .001).
Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The empowerment program was shown to have short-term, positive effects on behavioral, physical, and psychosocial outcomes in a Taiwan population with prediabetes. The results of this study provide a useful reference not only for healthcare personnel when implementing empowerment interventions in people with prediabetes but also for nursing educators and healthcare policymakers.