STRENGTHEN: Health Trainers for people on Community Supervision v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving health, under community supervision, with the support of a Health Trainer: Developing and evaluating a pilot randomised controlled trial\n
IRAS ID
179935
Contact name
Adrian Taylor
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Plymouth University
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN80475744
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
People receiving community supervision have greater healthcare needs, lower levels of healthcare access and face greater social inequalities compared to the general population. This leads to long term poorer health outcomes. Little is known about the effectiveness of interventions to improve the health and mental well-being of people serving community sentences compared with those in prison, due to a lack of routine data collection and challenges of follow up. Health Trainers, with an understanding of the client group and basic training in effective behaviour change techniques, may be able to support clients by helping to build motivation and confidence to make important changes. We propose to conduct a study in which people receiving community supervision are offered a chance to receive support from a Health Trainer for up to 12 sessions. The aim is to ensure that clients gain a sense of achievement and competence, a sense of control over choosing which behaviours to change, when and how, and a chance to receive support from others. Health Trainers will support clients to address one of four health behaviours (alcohol/smoking reduction, increased physical activity, improved diet), and will offer ideas on ways to achieve this, while developing a shared understanding of how this can impact on health and well-being, and other behaviours. The proposed research will be the first step towards finding out if this support leads to improvement towards the target health behaviours, wellbeing and health related quality of life. Participants entering the study will be assigned (with equal chance) to either Health Trainer or usual support, and followed up at 3 & 6 months by a researcher. We will also investigate whether the extra costs associated with the Health Trainer support provided offer value for money in terms of improved health behaviours and resultant reduction in health care costs.
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
16/WA/0171
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion