Impact of Health-Promoting Lifestyle Education Intervention on Health-Promoting Behaviors and Health Status of Postmenopausal Women: A Quasi-Experimental Study from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Health promotion through lifestyle education is an important measure to enhance health status of postmenopausal women (PMW). This study evaluated the effectiveness of health-promoting lifestyle education intervention (HPLEI) on adhering to health-promoting behaviors (HPB) and enhancing the health status in a group of Sri Lankan PMW. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with randomly selected, sociodemographic status matched, 72 PMW from two geographically separated areas in Galle District, Sri Lanka, allocated as experimental (n = 37, 54.6 ± 4.5 years) and control (n = 35, 56.5 ± 3.4 years) groups. Education intervention focused on postmenopausal health management including lifestyle modifications was performed only for the experimental group during 8 weeks, and a health education package was provided. The control group was not given any planned education programme. Both groups were followed up for a 6-month period. HPB and menopausal symptoms severity were evaluated by validated Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II and Menopause Rating Scale, respectively. Anthropometric adiposity indices (AAIs) including weight, body mass index (BMI), waist (WC) and hip (HC) circumferences, and waist to hip ratio (WHR); cardiovascular disease risk indicators (CVDRI) including systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol and triglycerides, muscle strength; hand grip strength (HGS) and physical performance (PP); gait speed (GS) were measured. All parameters were evaluated before the intervention (baseline) and after follow-up of 6 months. All evaluated parameters were not different between experimental and control groups (p>0.05) at the baseline. In the follow-up evaluation, HPB (p<0.001), menopausal symptom scores (p<0.001), AAI (p<0.001), CVDRI (SBP, DBP, and FBS) (p<0.05) and HGS and GS (p<0.001) were significantly improved in the experimental group but not in the control group. Health education intervention focused on health-promoting lifestyle modifications is effective in improving the adherence to HPB and enhances the health status in PMW. This provides positive impact in lifestyle medicine.