The development of metabolic syndrome negatively affects the quality of life of people with serious mental illness. Experts agree on the need to evaluate the physical health of patients and intervene in modifiable risk factors, with emphasis on the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Interventions should include nutritional counselling and physical activity. This 24-week randomized trial evaluated the effects of a community-based nurse-led lifestyle-modification intervention in people with serious mental illness meeting metabolic syndrome criteria, and its impact on health-related quality of life and physical activity. Sixty-one participants from two community mental health centres were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. The intervention consisted of weekly group sessions, with 20 min of theoretical content and 60 min of nurse-led physical activity. Postintervention results between groups showed no differences in weight, waist circumference, fasting glucose, and systolic blood pressure. Differences in body mass index, triglyceride concentrations, and diastolic blood pressure were found to be significant (P = 0.010, P = 0.038, and P = 0.017). Participants who performed the intervention reported an increase in physical activity, which did not occur in the control group (P = 0.035), and also reported better health status (P < 0.001). Our intervention showed positive effects reducing participants' cardiovascular and metabolic risks and improving their physical activity and quality of life. To our knowledge, this is the first clinical trial led and carried out by mental health nurses in community mental health centres which takes into account the effects of a lifestyle intervention on every metabolic syndrome criterion, health-related quality of life, and physical activity.
Keywords: intervention; lifestyle; metabolic syndrome; nurse; serious mental illness.
© 2019 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.