Habit Formation Intervention to Improve Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management Behaviors: A Feasibility Study

Self-management of lifestyle behaviors is the recommended focus for interventions to address Type 2 diabetes. Habit formation is an effective approach to changing personal behaviors, but evidence of success for Type 2 diabetes is limited.

To examine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of occupation-based habit formation interventions for improving diabetes self-management behaviors.

Single-subject design with multiple participants providing 4 wk of baseline data followed by 10 wk of intervention data.

Individual telehealth sessions.

Eight adults (ages 29-75 yr) with Type 2 diabetes, who had access to a telephone and who were not involved in other diabetes-related education or interventions voluntarily, enrolled into the study.

Participants engaged in 10 wk of habit formation intervention focused on four diabetes self-management domains: nutrition, blood glucose monitoring, medication management, and physical activity.

Data gathered included findings on measures of diabetes self-care behaviors and habit formation.

There was a significant change in self-care behaviors for 6 of the 8 participants (p < .05 for 1 participant, and p < .01 for 5 participants). Group changes were statistically significant (p < .001). Habit strength significantly improved for all areas of diabetes self-management (p < .001 for nutrition, blood glucose monitoring, and medication management and p = .001 for physical activity).

Findings suggest that the occupation-based intervention was feasible and showed promise for developing self-management behaviors. What This Article Adds: Habits are considered foundational to occupations, yet application of the science of habit formation is often not well understood by occupational therapists. This study considered the theoretical components of habit formation that have been neglected by prior studies and demonstrates the feasibility and preliminary effect estimates of a habit formation intervention when used with people with Type 2 diabetes.