Screening and Educating Emergency Department Attendees on Health-risk Behaviours
Health-risk Behaviours, Non Communicable Diseases
About this trial
This is an interventional treatment trial for Health-risk Behaviours focused on measuring Health-risk Behaviours, Non Communicable Diseases, Emergency Department
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria: (1) age ≥18 years, (2) triage as semi-urgent (level 4) or non-urgent (level 5), and (3) the presence of at least one health risk behaviour (tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity) Exclusion Criteria: (1) poor cognitive state or mental illness and (2) participation in another related study
Sites / Locations
- The Chinese University of Hong KongRecruiting
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Arm 2
Experimental
Placebo Comparator
Intervention group
Control group
The participants will also be given a Practical Resource Hub for Healthy Life leaflet containing information on various applications. The participants will receive a brief telephone intervention using the Ask, Warn, Advise, Refer and Do-it-again (AWARD) model. For the advice step, the research assistant will ask about the priority the participants place on engagement in desirable health-related lifestyle practices identified in the completed behavioural risk factor survey. The participants will also be asked to choose the goal that they consider easiest to achieve, such as quitting or reducing smoking, consuming more vegetables or less fatty foods or sugary drinks, performing more exercise or reducing alcohol consumption. The participants will be encouraged to quit health-risk behaviours (or adopt a healthy lifestyle) sequentially, but they will also be able to choose to quit them simultaneously if they are confident in doing so.
The participants will also be given a Practical Resource Hub for Healthy Life leaflet containing information on various applications. The control group participants will receive a brief telephone intervention based on the AWARD model and delivered by the trained research assistant, similar to that delivered to the intervention group. However, the research assistant will simply advise the participants to modify their health-risk behaviours and/or adopt a healthy lifestyle practice. In addition, the research assistant will send regular SMS messages to the participants at a similar frequency to the intervention group, but these messages will contain only general health advice. The participants will also receive follow-up for outcome assessments with the same schedule as those in the intervention group.