Diabetes Care: A Research Report co-authored by Scott Rigby on a Virtual-Health Intervention
By Geoffrey Williams, Christopher Niemiec, Ari Elliot, Jennifer La Guardia, Amy Groin & Scott Rigby
Published in Diabetes Care (August, 2014)
The Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) research program was conducted as a pilot evaluation of a partly virtualized intervention that delivered content along with 6 monthly visits with a registered dietitian. The results of this intervention produced clinically significant weight loss and improvements in glycemic control, blood pressure, and quality of life in patients with type 2 diabetes.”
The use of technology in clinical settings is of interest because virtualized interventions can reduce clinical contact time and increase reach in the population. The Virtual Look AHEAD Program demonstrated that a Virtual Clinician can be perceived as supportive of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and that those perceptions predict motivation for managing weight loss, which has significant associations with weight-loss outcomes. These results highlight an opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of practitioners through the implementation of need-supportive, online lifestyle interventions.
To read more, go to: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/37/8/e169.full
