Intervention Programs Facilitating Healthy Lifestyle in Persons with Severe Mental Illness

Persons with severe mental illness (SMI) perceive significant health hazards represented in early mortality and increased incidence of lifestyle-related diseases, such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. These health risks are direct outcomes of an unhealthy lifestyle associated with unhealthy nutrition, lack of physical activity and excessive smoking. Several health promotion programs have been designed and implemented in order to change the vicious cycle of unhealthy behavior and disease. Cohorts of participants in two unique programs were followed over a 10-week period, and compared to a similar control group not receiving any particular intervention. The first is a health promotion program called Even Derech, based on 10 weekly workshop sessions facilitated by a trained facilitator with a disability and provided to 10-15 participants with SMI each. Group members were recruited in residences, sheltered vocational centers, leisure time clubs and the community. Workshops were hosted either by the recruitment host or in a community center. The second is a basketball sport group comprised of individuals with SMI and participating in a unique league of teams comprising of persons with SMI. Both programs met once a week for one to one-and-a-half hour sessions. The purpose of the present study is to present the self-rated health, nutrition, physical activity (PA) and social change outcomes, as well as perceived stage of change and self-efficacy (SE), in participants of the three cohorts prior to and after the evaluation period. The results indicated a significant increase in intense physical activity at least three times per week, as well as in an index of three questions regarding PA participation after the 10-week period only in the basketball team. However, both the basketball and the workshop groups significantly perceived more gains in stages of change regarding PA participation compared to the control group. Conversely, the workshop participants reported significantly greater gains in perceived SE toward PA participation. Regarding nutrition, a minor but insignificant increase in compliance with healthy nutrition practices was observed in the workshop participants. It may be concluded that only the basketball activity had an impact on self-rated PA participation and its stages of change, while the workshop group appeared to improve perceived SE in this regard.