Lifestyle advice and lifestyle change: to what degree does lifestyle advice of healthcare professionals reach the population, focusing on gender, age and education?

Abstract

Health promotion practice in health care has a high priority in the endeavour to achieve equal opportunities for health and diversity in health among the population. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether there is any connection between the lifestyle advice given by healthcare professionals and the lifestyle change of the population, focusing on age, gender and education level. The study is based on the data from a national population survey in Sweden in which 52 595 patients who had attended health care were interviewed by phone. The participants were asked whether healthcare professionals had raised the subject of lifestyle during the visit and whether the advice they gave had contributed to a lifestyle change. The results indicated that lifestyle issues were raised with 32.2% of those who attended health care, particularly among men, younger patients and those with a high education level. When lifestyle issues were raised, the advice contributed to 39.2% of patients making a lifestyle change, to a higher extent among men, older patients and those with a low education level. The study shows that lifestyle advice given by healthcare professionals, during both emergency and outpatient healthcare visits, is an important contributor to patients' lifestyle change.

Structural Model for Estimating the Influence of Healthy Lifestyle on Episodic Memory in Adults with Subjective Memory Complaints

“…Gender is significantly associated with a healthy lifestyle. Compared to male, the female has a higher healthy lifestyle level, which is in line with the findings in [37]. The findings of this study support the report from earlier studies that a higher level of education may contribute to adopting a healthy lifestyle [37].…”

“…Compared to male, the female has a higher healthy lifestyle level, which is in line with the findings in [37]. The findings of this study support the report from earlier studies that a higher level of education may contribute to adopting a healthy lifestyle [37]. The age and healthy lifestyle have no significant association in the current research, which is in contrast to the previous findings where a negative correlation is between age and healthy lifestyle [38].…”

Exploring complaints by female and male patients at Swedish hospitals using a probabilistic graphical model

“…Previous studies have highlighted the importance of identifying and addressing unmotivated sex differences in health care in general and patients’ complaints in particular . The present article has demonstrated the potential of the BN for understanding ‘gendered complaints’ in health care.…”

How gender influence the health state? A cross sectional study in an endocrine setting

“…Indeed, in our population, women had a higher level of education compared to men and this could have affected the lifestyle of our patients. It is demonstrated that better educated people follow a healthier lifestyle, probably due to the increased awareness of the correlation between lifestyle and health (26).…”