Impact of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Education Intervention on Health-Promoting Behaviors and Health Status of Postmenopausal Women: A Quasi-Experimental Study from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Health promotion through lifestyle education is an important measure to enhance health status of postmenopausal women (PMW). This study evaluated the effectiveness of health-promoting lifestyle education intervention (HPLEI) on adhering to health-promoting behaviors (HPB) and enhancing the health status in a group of Sri Lankan PMW. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with randomly selected, sociodemographic status matched, 72 PMW from two geographically separated areas in Galle District, Sri Lanka, allocated as experimental (n = 37, 54.6 ± 4.5 years) and control (n = 35, 56.5 ± 3.4 years) groups. Education intervention focused on postmenopausal health management including lifestyle modifications was performed only for the experimental group during 8 weeks, and a health education package was provided. The control group was not given any planned education programme. Both groups were followed up for a 6-month period. HPB and menopausal symptoms severity were evaluated by validated Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II and Menopause Rating Scale, respectively. Anthropometric adiposity indices (AAIs) including weight, body mass index (BMI), waist (WC) and hip (HC) circumferences, and waist to hip ratio (WHR); cardiovascular disease risk indicators (CVDRI) including systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol and triglycerides, muscle strength; hand grip strength (HGS) and physical performance (PP); gait speed (GS) were measured. All parameters were evaluated before the intervention (baseline) and after follow-up of 6 months. All evaluated parameters were not different between experimental and control groups (p>0.05) at the baseline. In the follow-up evaluation, HPB (p<0.001), menopausal symptom scores (p<0.001), AAI (p<0.001), CVDRI (SBP, DBP, and FBS) (p<0.05) and HGS and GS (p<0.001) were significantly improved in the experimental group but not in the control group. Health education intervention focused on health-promoting lifestyle modifications is effective in improving the adherence to HPB and enhances the health status in PMW. This provides positive impact in lifestyle medicine.

Effect of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Modification Education on Knowledge, Attitude, and Quality of Life of Postmenopausal Women

“…The mean (SD) age of the intervention and control groups was 54.6 (4.5) and 56.5 (3.4) years (p = 0:06), respectively. Age at menopause, time since menopause, and sociodemographic characteristics were not different between the intervention and control groups [18]. Knowledge, attitude, MENQOL, and overall QOL scores were not different between the intervention and control groups at the baseline (Evaluation 1) (p values are not shown in tables).…”

“…Further, health education programmes on health improvement and maintenance of PMW have shown successful improvements in overall QOL in many domains [5,19,[38][39][40][41]. Our previous publication also reported that HPLEI is an effective way to establish good living habits and general health status of PMW [18]. Therefore, study population, duration, and intensity of the programme would not be a matter if the programme showed beneficial and truthful effects as reported by many studies in similar nature [5, 13 26-41].…”

“…It was a multifaceted, culturally accepted, well-designed programme guided by a theoretical framework. It also had the set realistic goals, individualized approach, and regular follow-up with strict monitoring in a lengthy period of 8 weeks training and 6 months followup [18].…”

“…8 BioMed Research International regarding the management of menopausal effects satisfactorily and positive attitude towards menopause. The other reason could be that they were able to get rid of irritable menopausal discomforts and enhanced general health status including physical functions, cardiovascular risks, and adiposity status [18] by following up the taught programme made their lives happier and healthier than earlier.…”

“…This study was a quasi-experimental study, which observed the impact of HPLEI that was designed as a part of a main study "Effects of menopause on bodily structure, functions and physical health," conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka [17]. The methodology on the selection of a sample and HPLEI have been well described in our previous publication when presenting the impact of HPLEI on health-promoting behaviors and health status of the same cohort of study participants [18]. The women (n = 166) were selected randomly from 05 Public Health Midwife's (PHM) division in Bope-Poddala Medical Officer of Health area, Galle district, in Sri Lanka, for the main study.…”