Supporting Healthy Lifestyles
Smoking and obesity are the two leading causes of preventable mortality in the US, and people with psychosis are 2-3 times more likely to have either or both of these chronic disease risk factors.
Effective treatments for both conditions exist, but these are not consistently available to people who receive care in community mental health settings. Our projects have identified gaps in and barriers to current delivery of these treatments and explored innovative strategies to support implementation of effective treatments.
Expand titles to see more about our work related to supporting a healthy lifestyle .
Instruments to assess physical activity
SPIRIT faculty were part of the multidisciplinary, international working group that developed and tested the 5-item Simple Psychical Activity Questionnaire (SIMPAQ) as a clinical tool to assess physical activity and sedentary behavior in people living with mental illness. SPIRIT participated in the 23-country (n= 1010) study between 2018-2019 that demonstrated the instrument’s validity and reliability. Funding sources: University of New South Wales (Australia) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research UK) PI:Rosenbaum
Supporting healthy lifestyle in first episode psychosis treatment
Despite increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the rate of monitoring of risk factors is low among patients prescribed antipsychotics. Providers lack of resources to obtain cardiovascular disease risk measurements, limited support for ensuring that monitoring is completed, and lack of follow-up protocols. Our current project aims to develop a population management approach to identifying and addressing CVD risk in FEP teams in WA state. Funding sources: Anonymous donors.
Pilot Implementation of Diabetes Prevention Program in Six Community Mental Health Centers
In this 6-month pilot study, participants (n=60) received the 16-week DPP core curriculum at six CMHCs in King County WA. A comparison group (n= 77) received usual care at five other CMHCs. The DPP was feasible and acceptable to staff and clients at the participating CMHCs and DPP participants were nearly three times more likely to lose a clinically significant amount of weight.