[How to effectively change health behaviours of patients at old age]

In the frame of the international CHANGE Project a training course for nurses has been elaborated in order to improve their interpersonal communication skills in motivating older patients to change their health behaviours. Family nurses, caring for community-dwelling older patients applied their newly-developed competences to promote healthy nutrition and regular physical activity among their patients.

To assess the effectiveness of the nurse training. Changes in physical activity and nutritional habits of older patients resulting from nurses' performance were evaluated as well as patients' intentions to change those behaviours.

During the 2 weeks following the training 108 older patients at age avg. 69.6 (SD 60-87) in Krakow city, were initially interviewed by nurses with a questionnaire assessing health behaviours (frequency of intake of particular food products, frequency of different types of physical activity) and motivation to change those behaviours. The nurses provided consultancy directly after questionnaire interviews, then visited patients for consultancy at least once and repeated their assessment 6-8 weeks after the first one. Wilcoxon's matched pairs test and paired t-test were applied to measure the effectiveness of the intervention.

The results have shown a significant improvement in duration (p<0.04) and frequency (p=0.0531) of walking, change of attitudes toward physical activity (p<0.003), and intentions to exercise regularly (p<0.01), higher level of self-satisfaction with personal physical capacity (p<0.006) and well-being (p<0.005). The frequency of intake of fresh fruit, vegetables and water (p<0.0001), pasta, cereal or bread (p<0.02) has also increased significantly.

The nurses' training in motivating older patients to change their health behaviours exerted an effect on patients' health beliefs, intentions and health behaviours.