Campus Life

Vascular Risk Assessment Program benefits study, good for faculty and staff

A wellness initiative designed to improve the heart health of faculty and staff at the University of Lethbridge is also contributing to an important study that promises to embolden nursing students with health coaching techniques they will eventually take into clinical settings.

The U of L’s Vascular Risk Assessment Program (part of Health Check for U), a wellness initiative that partners with the campus health centre, begins its fall session Oct. 2 and runs through Nov. 27, 2014.

Lisa Howard, a registered nurse and PhD candidate at the University of Alberta who also teaches nursing theory and clinical courses in the University of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Health Sciences, has focused her research on health coaching as an approach to supporting clients incorporate healthy lifestyle practices. Health coaching is a way of talking with clients to help them make changes for their overall health.

“It’s a very different approach to what is being practiced today, which is typically a case where the clinician simply provides information for people to take away from a visit,” says Howard. “Health coaching is customized to what the client’s needs are.”

Howard explains that health care is focusing much more on lifestyle modification to reduce risk factors for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. To do so, nursing students need more than content knowledge for health education, rather they require the opportunity to apply behavioural counselling skills. The U of L’s Vascular Risk Assessment Program (part of Health Check for U), a wellness initiative in partnership with the campus Health Centre, provides that opportunity. Its fall session runs from Oct. 2 through Nov. 27, 2014.

“I think the University is really stepping up to the plate in terms of serving its faculty and staff,” says Howard of the free program that allows undergraduate nursing students the chance to practice in a clinical setting, all the while providing cardiovascular and other health screening indicators to clients.

“We know that health coaching appears to be a success and student feedback has been very positive,” says Howard. “But there is little evidence out there on the most effective ways to teach motivational interviewing to undergraduate nursing students and no research on how clients experienced this kind of approach from nursing students.”

Howard’s goal is to interview both clients and nursing students following their participation in the program to see what best practices can be gleaned from the experience.

“There is a real gap in understanding how people actually learn this in a clinical setting, and this will help us understand, as scholars, how we can customize the learning experience for our students so that they can in turn make it a valuable experience for clients,” says Howard.

In the end, she believes students will be better equipped to take these techniques with them into clinical settings and have greater success effecting change in their clients’ lifestyles.

“Canadians keep going back to health-care providers really hoping that we’re going to help them, and if we continue to just lecture them, that’s not helpful,” says Howard. “If we’re going to put a health-care professional in front of a patient, that time is to be really well used. Lecturing is not a good use of time, we want to be providing highly customized support based on what is important to the client.”

Those who would like to participate in the Health Check for U program or would like more information can contact wellness@uleth.ca, or register by visiting Health Check for U.