Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Mar 1;17(3):374-385.
doi: 10.1177/15598276211073078. eCollection 2023 May-Jun.

Dosing of Health and Wellness Coaching for Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Research Synthesis to Derive Recommendations

Gary A Sforzo  1 , Miranda P Kaye  2 , Aubrey Faber  3 , Margaret Moore  4   5
Affiliations
Review

Dosing of Health and Wellness Coaching for Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Research Synthesis to Derive Recommendations

Gary A Sforzo et al. Am J Lifestyle Med. .

Abstract

Health and wellness coaching (HWC) is an effective intervention for lifestyle disease such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. The evolving HWC profession needs recommendations to guide clinical practice, particularly the appropriate dose of coaching. The purpose of this paper was to systematically review and synthesize HWC literature to derive HWC programming recommendations. Of 102 papers retrieved, 88 were retained with data extracted determining HWC session number, frequency, duration, program length, and total coaching load. Differential analysis yielded no statistical difference in programming variables for randomized control trials and other designs, nor for studies with significant findings v. those not finding statistical significance, allowing these data to be pooled. The HWC intervention for obesity was slightly more intense (15 sessions over 7-8 mo) than the diabetes programming (12 sessions over 9-10 mo). On average, HWC programming applied in the peer-reviewed literature was 12-15 sessions of 35-40 min duration over 7-9 months. These recommendations for HWC programming variables are put forth as initial practice guidelines and should be examined with comparative effectiveness study for optimization. HWC best practice guidelines for other patient groups (e.g., heart disease, cancer, and chronic pain) should also be studied once an adequate literature data base is available.

Keywords: behavior change; diabetes; health coaching; obesity; wellness.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
PRISMA flowchart of study inclusion.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Initial health and wellness coaching programming guidelines.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Muñoz Obino KF, Aguiar Pereira C, Caron-Lienert RS. Coaching and barriers to weight loss: an integrative review. Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes. 2016;10:1-11. doi:10.2147/DMSO.S113874. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pirbaglou M, Katz J, Motamed M, Pludwinski S, Walker K, Ritvo P. Personal health coaching as a type 2 diabetes mellitus self-management strategy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Am J Health Promot. 2018;32:1613-1626. doi:10.1177/0890117118758234. - DOI - PubMed
    1. U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs . Success with health and well-being coaching codes. Available from:https://www.va.gov/WHOLEHEALTH/features/Health_and_Well_Being_Coaching_C.... (accessed 21 July 2021).
    1. Levy HC, Worden BL, Davies CD, et al.The dose-response curve in cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders. Cogn Behav Ther. 2020;49:439-454. doi:10.1080/16506073.2020.1771413. - DOI - PubMed
    1. National Government Services . Preventive services guide: intensive behavioral therapy for obesity. Available from:https://www.ngsmedicare.com/ngs/portal/ngsmedicare/newngs/home-lob/pages....(accessed 21 July 2021).

LinkOut - more resources