Money spent on patient education is wasted, unfortunately.
Dear Editor,
Best available evidence indicates that all patient education efforts/incentives/campaigns failed to change unhealthy behaviors and improve clinical outcomes.
An extensive systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) revealed that school-based interventions targeting multiple lifestyle risk behaviours in adolescents did not efficiently sustain long-term effects so as to improve health outcomes.
The allocation of State funds, donations, and human resources in order to organize school health seminars for adolescents proved ineffective.
Reference https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589750019300883
"Mass media health campaigns may not be able to directly change behaviour in most instances, based on available evidence, but they can affect knowledge and awareness." A systematic review and other reviews of the evidence.
Reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK540706/
A recent randomized trial involving 32,974 employees who participated in 18 months of multicomponent workplace wellness programs comprising 8 modules focused on nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction, and related topics, proved that such interventions did not result in significant differences in clinical measures of health, health care spending and utilization, and employment outcomes.
There were no significant effects on 27 self-reported health outcomes and behaviors (including self-reported health, sleep quality, and food choices), 10 clinical markers of health (including cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index), 38 medical and pharmaceutical spending and utilization measures, and 3 employment outcomes (absenteeism, job tenure, and job performance).
Reference https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2730614
Rapid Response:
Money spent on patient education is wasted, unfortunately.
Dear Editor,
Best available evidence indicates that all patient education efforts/incentives/campaigns failed to change unhealthy behaviors and improve clinical outcomes.
An extensive systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) revealed that school-based interventions targeting multiple lifestyle risk behaviours in adolescents did not efficiently sustain long-term effects so as to improve health outcomes.
The allocation of State funds, donations, and human resources in order to organize school health seminars for adolescents proved ineffective.
Reference
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589750019300883
"Mass media health campaigns may not be able to directly change behaviour in most instances, based on available evidence, but they can affect knowledge and awareness." A systematic review and other reviews of the evidence.
Reference
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK540706/
A recent randomized trial involving 32,974 employees who participated in 18 months of multicomponent workplace wellness programs comprising 8 modules focused on nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction, and related topics, proved that such interventions did not result in significant differences in clinical measures of health, health care spending and utilization, and employment outcomes.
There were no significant effects on 27 self-reported health outcomes and behaviors (including self-reported health, sleep quality, and food choices), 10 clinical markers of health (including cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index), 38 medical and pharmaceutical spending and utilization measures, and 3 employment outcomes (absenteeism, job tenure, and job performance).
Reference
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2730614
Extensive systematic reviews of previously published relative experimental studies revealed that money priming/incentives fail to affect people's thoughts, feelings, motivations and behaviors.
References
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617706161
https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/29126856/Lodder_et_al._2019_A_...
Competing interests: No competing interests