Evaluation of educational workshops for health professionals in behaviour change

Health professionals have shown to rely on providing only education to clients as a way of delivering information and promoting behaviour change. However, while education is important, it is usually ineffective for changing behaviour when used in isolation. Behaviour change theories and techniques can be useful for delivering effective behaviour change interventions. As such, dietary interventions that are informed by behaviour change theoretical models and techniques, have shown to have a greater potential to be more effective than those without. Dietitians have expressed that the training received during dietetics education in behaviour change has been inadequate and that they felt their skills in behaviour change were limited. A pre-post design with a follow up, comparing the effectiveness of a behaviour change intervention across three time points. Assessments will occur at baseline (T0), Post workshops (T1) and at 3-month follow-up (T2). The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of two-2 hour workshops in: • Increasing the number of behaviour change techniques used and frequency of use of behaviour change techniques in practice. • Increase dietitians’ capability, opportunity, motivation and preparedness towards delivering behaviour change techniques in practice. The final aim is to assess the acceptability of the intervention, to dietitians. The workshops will be delivered by the research team which include a health psychologist and researchers from psychology and nutrition/dietetics who are experienced in health-behaviour change. Workshops will be conducted online via Microsoft Teams. Each workshop will be conducted in groups of up to 15 participants. Workshop 2 will be within 3 months of the first. The workshops are guided by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation and Behaviour model (Michie et al., 2011). The workshop will enable dietitians to (1) Understand the importance of using behaviour change in practice, (2) Define the characteristics of the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behaviour Model (COM-B Model), (3) Be able to identify opportunities to use behaviour change techniques in practice and 4) Be able to implement behaviour change techniques in practice. Workshop 1 will focus on outcomes 1 and 2. Workshop 2 will focus on outcomes 3 and 4. Topics will involve understanding behaviour, the COM-B model and behaviour change techniques. In both workshops, there will be an opportunity to work through case studies and group discussions. Materials & Procedures Participants will be recruited via social media and newsletters of Australian nutrition and dietetic organisations. After signing up to the study, participants will be asked to complete a baseline measure and will be randomised into either the intervention group or the waitlist control group. Participants allocated into the intervention group will be able to choose their preferred workshop time and access the workshops immediately. Participants in the waitlist control group will be required to wait 3 months before having access to the workshops. Participants will be asked to attend both two 2-hour workshops. Following workshop 2, participants will complete a post-workshop survey and a follow up survey at 3 months. These measures will be completed online via Qualtrics. Each survey will include questions regarding the use of behaviour change techniques and frequency of use. Participants will also be asked about their capability, opportunity, motivation, and preparedness to use behaviour change techniques in practice. Process Evaluation: Process evaluation will be conducted using two methods: (1) a measure of acceptability in the post workshop survey and (2) interviews at the end of 3 months. The measure of acceptability will include two items which were developed by Kothe and Mullan (2014). The first item will ask participants to rate their agreeance on a 5-point Likert scale for 7 keywords related to the two behaviour change workshops. Some examples include: whether the participants felt the workshops were “useful, appropriate, interesting, and worth my time”. Item two explores participant satisfaction with the workshops. This item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) very dissatisfied to (5) very satisfied. During the follow-up survey at 3 months, participants will also be invited to attend a 1:1 interview via Microsoft teams. Interviews will explore barriers or enablers following implementation of behaviour change strategies demonstrated in the workshop. These interviews will be guided by the COM-B model (Michie et al., 2011).