Mobile Intervention as Effective as Group Intervention for Promoting Weight Loss in Young People With SMI

Young adults with serious mental illness (SMI) who are overweight or obese experienced similar weight loss and cardiorespiratory fitness improvements after participating in a 12-month group intervention as those who received one-on-one mobile health (mHealth) coaching for 12 months, areport inPsychiatric Services in Advance has found.The findings suggest that “mHealth coaching may be a more scalable approach for addressing modifiable cardiometabolic risk factors among young adults with serious mental illness,” wrote Stephen J. Bartels, M.D., M.S., of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues.The study involved 150 adults with SMI aged 18 to 35 years with a body mass index ≥25 kg/m2 who were receiving services at four community mental health centers in the northeastern United States. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups:PeerFIT: Participants in the PeerFIT group were invited to twice-weekly one-hour group meetings in person for six months followed by weekly exercise sessions for six months. They also received wearable activity trackers (Fitbits) and were encouraged to participate in a private Facebook group, where they could access information about healthy lifestyles and interact with others in the group. PeerFIT participants received weekly text messages (three to five texts per week) from the coach, encouraging healthy behaviors and monitoring of weight and physical activity.BEAT:Participants in the BEAT mHealth group attended an in-person ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: cardiovascular disease group intervention mHealth mobile health intervention obese overweight Psychiatric Services serious mental illness SMI weight loss Source Type: research