The relationship between counselling methods after health check-ups and lipid profile improvement: a retrospective cohort study in Korea

Abstract

Background: Despite growing numbers of private health check-ups, it is not known whether post-check-up counselling and education can improve chronic disease management. It has previously been shown that, in general, these factors are crucial to chronic disease management. Therefore, this study aimed to determine which counselling methods should be employed, following private check-ups, for optimal chronic disease management.Methods: Participants were 7,039 adults over the age of 20, who received at least three check-ups from September 2013 to August 2019. All participants received the same form of counselling, three or more times consecutively. Three forms of counselling were examined: mail, telephone, and face-to-face. Chi-square tests, one-way analyses of variance, and Scheffé post-hoc analyses were performed to determine the relationship between various demographic characteristics and counselling methods received. We performed covariance analyses after adjusting for age, sex and number of examinations to determine the correlations between the counselling methods and changes in health indicators. When necessary, Bonferroni pairwise comparisons were performed.Results: The face-to-face counselling group was the oldest and had the poorest cardiometabolic parameters and glucose metabolic indices. However, face-to-face counselling was associated with the greatest improvement in levels of total cholesterol (P<0.001) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P<0.001). Conclusion: Face-to-face counselling with doctors seems to be more effective at improving lipid profiles than phone or mail counselling. Further research is required to identify the effects of face-to-face counselling on long-term outcomes such as cardiovascular disease mortality. (IRB number: 1909-006-16282).