No effects of tailored feedback and face to face counseling on health behaviors in hypercholesterolemia patients

In a paper just published in the journal PLOS ONE, with Karen Broekhuizen, who will defend her thesis this Friday and become Dr. Karen Broekhuizen- as first author, we describe the evaluation of an individualised tailored lifestyle intervention on physical activity, dietary intake, smoking and compliance to statin therapy in people with Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH).
Adults with FH (n = 340) were randomly assigned to a usual care control group or an intervention group. The intervention consisted of web-based tailored lifestyle advice and face-to-face counselling. Physical activity, fat, fruit and vegetable intake, smoking and compliance to statin therapy were self-reported at baseline and after 12 months.
Individually tailored feedback did not prove to be superior to no intervention regarding changes in multiple lifestyle behaviours in people with FH. Earlier studies on computer-tailoring did show very promising effects. In the present study actual exposure to the intervention was also suboptimal, and a higher received dose of computer-tailored interventions should be achieved counsellor training should be more extensive.