Open Collections

Mucha, Julia

University of British Columbia

Background: Self-management is crucial to disease management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to reduce symptom burden, improve quality of life, and enhance physical function. To facilitate behavior change, physiotherapists can apply behavior change techniques (BCTs) to promote self-management and physical activity. A 40-item taxonomy can be used to identify BCTs in interventions targeting physical activity participation. The number of BCTs used can vary and no optimal number has been found when designing interventions. Objective: To explore the association between the number of BCTs in the initial physical therapy counselling session and participant’s change in self-management ability and physical activity participation. Methods: This study was an exploratory, secondary analysis nested within a randomised controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of a multifaceted counselling program on improving self-management ability of people with RA. Participants completed a 26-week intervention, in which they had seven physical activity counselling sessions with a Brief Action Planning-trained physiotherapist. During counselling, the physiotherapists helped participants set activity goals. Self-management ability and physical activity participation were assessed before and after the intervention using the Patient Activation Measure and a multisensory device, respectively. Participants were eligible for the secondary analysis if: 1) they consented to having their first counselling session recorded, 2) they completed both pre- and post- intervention assessments measuring at least one of the outcome variables. The first counselling session was coded for BCTs using the 40-item taxonomy. A heat map was developed to visualise the BCTs used in counselling. Correlation and univariate regression were conducted to explore the association between the number of BCTs in the initial session and change in self-management outcomes. Results: Of the 40 BCTs, 18 were identified in the sample of counselling sessions. There was no significant relationship between the number of BCTs and the self-management outcomes. A potential threshold of 8 or more BCTs was explored, and no relationship was found with the outcome variables. Conclusion: The number of BCTs used does not seem to influence the effectiveness of an intervention on self-management outcomes of people with RA.

Text

2023-08-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85701

Rehabilitation Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/