Wellness module for medical teachers: A pilot study

Background Health promotion and disease prevention should be facilitated at workplace by advocating a healthy diet and physical activity. In view of many lifestyle disorders health professionals also need to give attention to improve their health behavior. Behavior change plan have been eﬀective in achieving this goal however, it has not been investigated for healthcare professionals.


Background
Researchers suggest that personal behaviors cause more than 50% of illnesses. With lifestyle behavioral choices contributing to a significant proportion of chronic diseases globally, evidence-based strategies to improve behavioral risk factors such as healthier eating and regular physical activity should be considered in a variety of settings especially for healthcare professionals involved in teaching [1][2] .
Hence this study was aimed to evaluate a behavior change plan (BCP) initiative to improve personal health amongst medical teachers.
A sensitizing session for faculty from medical, dental and physiotherapy college was conducted first. Contents were: Concept of wellness and its significance 1.
Different areas of wellness 2.
BCP and how to implement it 3.
A format for wellness was circulated amongst them 1 . They were asked to submit it after careful consideration to the area of wellness chosen. Follow up for 1 month and then 2 month score was recorded in the chosen area.
One group pre and posttest design was utilized to conduct quantitative analysis of reported BCP success and qualitative evaluation was done by semi-structured interviews of participants' perspectives of obstacles, behaviors important towards goal attainment and the benefits of the BCP. Goal achievement data was tabulated for each focus area, and report narratives distilled into common themes at the end of 2 months.

Results
Out of 30, 24 faculty responded for follow up (response rate 80%). Benefits of the BCP as reported by participants were increased stamina, feeling of well being.

Discussion
In today's modern lifestyle people frequently engage in multiple unhealthy behaviors with potential for negative health consequences like illness, injury, pain, disability and early death. Healthcare professionals are at increased risk as their work area and style makes them more prone to various ailments. Many times proper diet, physical exercise and adequate rest are compromised owing to hectic work schedules. Even if they know the drawbacks of such perilous lifestyle, the remedial actions are limited to very few who can master the art of time management and prioritizing personal and work life.
Workplace has been recognized internationally as appropriate setting for health promotion and disease prevention 5 .
Therefore, this module was planned and executed to motivate healthcare professionals to maintain a healthy lifestyle by modifying behaviors using BCP in stepwise manner. The ultimate aim was to convert them in self directed learners who will continue to progress on chosen path.
BCPs help to gain knowledge and skills essential to wellbeing and learn to use it more effectively, ask and answer questions and make sound judgments. Being aware of general principles of behavior change is effective for multiple risk adjustments, increased confidence to modify risk behavior for which there is low motivation to change and may lead to overall healthful lifestyle change 1,2 .
BCPs are grounded in behavior therapy, self monitoring and are often framed by principles from the transtheoretical model (TTM) for behavior change. Describing fluid steps, the model's stages are pre-contemplation (not In order to enhance desirable behavior we should plan a strategy. In this intervention our main aim was to make participants aware of BCP and help them to develop a strategy to achieve targets systematically. Whether they completed targets fully or not was secondary.
This was evident from themes that emerged from the interviews. All agreed that personal Wellness is important factor for all healthcare professionals and in our routine work and personal life we do not get enough time for Personal Wellness Participants could identify the barriers and facilitating factors for wellness progress. Wellness module was necessary and effective for self motivation and progress.

Conclusion and recommendation
Considering the importance of healthy lifestyle in disease prevention, the present module served as a tool to motivate faculty on wellness targets.

Take Home Messages
Healthcare professionals including medical teachers have to face a lot of stress and work pressure which can affect their health. It is essential that they engage to improve wellness by changing their behaviour.
This module can be considered as an initiative to promote wellness through integrated behaviour change plan.