Review
The effects of health coaching on adult patients with chronic diseases: A systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2014.07.026Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The review describes the effects of health coaching on patients with chronic diseases.

  • Health coaching produces positive effects on chronically ill patient's lives.

  • Health coaching motivates changes in chronically ill patients’ lifestyle behavior.

  • Health coaching improves a patient's physical and mental health status.

  • Health coaching supports the management of chronic diseases.

Abstract

Objective

The aim of this systematic review was to describe the effects of health coaching on adult patients with chronic diseases.

Methods

The reviewers searched electronic databases and performed a manual search for studies published from 2009 to 2013. The inclusion criteria covered health coaching for adults with chronic diseases by health care professionals. The studies were original, randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental designs.

Results

Thirteen studies were selected using the inclusion criteria. The results indicate that health coaching produces positive effects on patients’ physiological, behavioral and psychological conditions and on their social life. In particular, statistically significant results revealed better weight management, increased physical activity and improved physical and mental health status.

Conclusion

Health coaching improves the management of chronic diseases. Further research into the cost-effectiveness of health coaching and its long-term effectiveness for chronic diseases is needed.

Practice implications Health care professionals play key roles in promoting healthy behavior and motivating good care for adults with chronic diseases. Health coaching is an effective patient education method that can be used to motivate and take advantage of a patient's willingness to change their life style and to support the patient's home-based self-care.

Introduction

Chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, have a slow progression and last a long time. They account for more than 60% of all deaths in the world, and a large proportion of these deaths are for people under 60 years of age. Moreover, at least 2.8 million people die every year as a result of being overweight or obese. Economic transition, rapid urbanization and poor lifestyle choices such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and the harmful use of alcohol are among the risk factors contributing to the burden of chronic diseases [1].

Individual health care interventions have been demonstrated to have a positive effect and are usually cost-effective or low in cost. When individual interventions are combined population-wide they may save millions of lives and reduce human suffering from chronic diseases [1]. Health coaching is a single patient education method that can sometimes improve the quality, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of chronic disease management [2], [4]. It is a fresh, new approach that is not well defined [3], [4]. According to Palmer et al. [5], “health coaching is the practice of health education and health promotion within a coaching context, to enhance the wellbeing of individuals and to facilitate the achievement of their health-related goals.” It emerged from the motivational interviewing concept originated by Miller and Rollnick [6].

Health coaching is patient-oriented and motivates them to change their behavior. The purpose of health coaching is to motivate patients to achieve goals that enhance the quality of their lives and improve their health. A coach's role is to help patients weigh options, make choices and plan and identify challenges to help them change for the better. The role involves listening, understanding, facilitating, applauding, supporting, motivating and providing feedback to the patients [4].

The aim of this review was to describe the effects of health coaching on adult patients with chronic diseases. The research question was “What are the types of effects of health coaching interventions by health care professionals on adult patients with chronic diseases?”

Section snippets

Searching

This systematic review was conducted following the guidance for systematic reviews in health care [7], [8]. The study protocol was written before starting the selection of the studies and was approved by a review group (M.K., H.K.). Studies published between January 2009 and September 2013 were systematically searched for in the CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Scopus databases. Medical subject headings (MeSH) and other search terms were used to search through the titles, abstracts and the full

General description of studies

Thirteen published studies [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24] (Table 3) described the effects of health coaching on adult patients with chronic diseases. Eight studies came from the United States, two studies came from Thailand, and the other three studies came from Malaysia, Finland and Sweden. All studies were published between 2009 and 2013 and were original, empirical intervention studies. Eleven of the studies were randomized clinical trials [12],

Discussion

This systematic review describes the effects of health coaching on adults with chronic diseases. We reviewed 13 studies [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24] that had been published between January 2009 and September 2013. As chronic diseases increase, the available global health resources are being stretched further. Consequently, it is important to evaluate the effects of different treatment approaches for patients with chronic illnesses and their

Conflict of interest statement

No conflict of interest has been declared by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of the information specialist Margit Heikkala from the Oulu University Medical Library. No financial support is used for the work.

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