A brief office intervention is associated with improved health measures

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality for adults in developed countries. Many risk factors responsible for the development of cardiovascular disease are associated with behavior. We studied whether encouraging patients to be accountable for their own lifestyle choices would lead to improvements in subjective and objective health measures in 26 consecutive general cardiology clinic patients. Our hypothesis was, that after a simple brief cardiologist-initiated motivational discussion during a routine general cardiology clinic visit that included a weight loss "contract" signed by the patient, physician and a witness, patients would be more likely to lose weight or to remain the same weight as compared to historical controls. We found that intervention patients were more likely to lose weight or to remain the same weight, (p<0.01).