Lifestyle Behavior Change Can Prevent Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease

A recent study showed that effective lifestyle behavioral changes for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) frequently involved education, goal setting, feedback, monitoring, and social support.

The objective of the study was to identify and evaluate behavioral change techniques and functions in lifestyle interventions for preventing the progression of CKD.

In total, 4263 participants were analyzed using The Behavior Change Technique Taxonomy, v1, and the Health Behavior Change Wheel. The participants were eligible for the study if they had trials of lifestyle behavior change interventions (including diet, physical activity, smoking and/or alcohol) and CKD stages 1 to 5.

Results throughout 26 studies showed that risk of bias was high or unclear in most studies. The interventions involved diet (11), physical activity (8) or general lifestyle (7). The most frequently used function was education, with 21 interventions, followed by enablement (18), training (12), persuasion (4), environmental restructuring (4), modelling (2), and incentivization (2).

The most common techniques were behavioral instruction (23 interventions), social support (16), behavioral demonstration (13), feedback on behavior (12), and behavioral practice/rehearsal (12). Sixty-nine percent of the studies showed a significant improvement in at least 1 primary outcome, all of which included education, persuasion, modelling, and incentivization.

Reference

Evangelidis N, Craig J, Bauman A, et al. Lifestyle behaviour change for preventing the progression of chronic kidney disease: a systematic review. BMJ Open. 2019;9:e031625. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031625.