Adherence
Health and wellness coaching (HWC) interventions for obesity and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) demonstrate beneficial clinical findings, but current randomized controlled trials (RCTs) exhibit moderate design quality (average 56.7% score), with T2D studies showing significantly better intervention design fidelity than obesity studies.
Health coaching works for obesity and diabetes, but the quality of the coaching matters more than just the number of sessions. Look for coaches who are certified (NBHWC) and use structured behavior change strategies. For obesity, ensure the program is long-term (over 4 months) and includes frequent sessions, as these studies showed lower design quality and potentially less effective delivery compared to diabetes programs.
Most studies reported beneficial clinical findings; however, rubric results revealed moderate scores for study and intervention design... obesity studies showed significantly lower HWC intervention design scores compared to diabetes (t(27) = 2.97, p = .0006, Cohen’s d = 1.14, mean difference = 4.45, CI95% = 1.38–7.53) indicating better HWC intervention design for T2D than obesity studies.
Why this rating
Based on a systematic review of 29 RCTs with high inter-rater reliability (ICC=.85), though the rubric scores indicate moderate quality.
Source
A Rubric to Assess the Design and Intervention Quality of Randomized Controlled Trials in Health and Wellness Coaching
Sebastian Harenberg et al. · American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine · 2022
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