Clinical trial · Interventional
Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Implementation of the BETTER Women Peer Health Coaching Program
BETTER Women: Community-Based, Primary Care-Linked Peer Health Coaching to Achieve Evidence-Based Preventive Care Goals - A Pragmatic, Wait-List Controlled Effectiveness-Implementation Trial
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
The Building on Existing Tools To improvE cancer and chronic disease pRevention and screening in primary care (BETTER) Program allows patients in primary care to have a dedicated visit with a prevention practitioner to discuss chronic disease prevention and cancer screening. A prevention practitioner is a health professional, working in primary care, who has received additional training to discuss chronic disease prevention and screening and develop health goals with patients through shared decision-making. Previous studies have shown that this approach increases the number of prevention and screening actions completed by program participants. However, maintenance of health behaviour changes is difficult without on-going support. There is also some evidence that peer-delivered coaching can improve health outcomes in community settings. As such, the BETTER Women program extends the BETTER program by focusing on 40 to 68-year-old women and providing time-limited support for health behaviour change through peer health coaches. Coaches are volunteers - trained in techniques to support health behaviour change - who support women to achieve their health goals over a 6-month period. In this study, the investigators will explore: (i) whether patients who participate in health coaching after a prevention visit are more likely to increase the number of prevention and screening actions that they complete after six months, compared to women who participate in a prevention visit but do not get health coaching; (ii) whether the intervention effects endure six months after the intervention ends; and (iii) the implementation of the program to learn about factors that affect various aspects of the success and sustainability of the program.
Conditions
Conditions (2)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer | Malignant Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
| Chronic Disease | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
Interventions
Interventions (2)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peer health coaching | Behavioral | — | UNRESOLVED |
| Prevention Visit | Other | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- type
- EXPERIMENTAL
- label
- Intervention
- description
- Patients will have a prevention visit with a Prevention Practitioner (a healthcare provider who has received additional training), complete the baseline survey then be invited to receive ongoing support from a trained, volunteer peer health coach, for up to six months. The coach will support the patient as she works towards achieving personalized health goals to reduce her risk of chronic diseases, including cancer. Patients will be administered additional surveys at 3 and 6 months and a final survey at 12 months.
- interventionNames
- Other: Prevention Visit
- Behavioral: Peer health coaching
- type
- OTHER
- label
- Wait-list Control
- description
- Patients will have a prevention visit with a Prevention Practitioner (a healthcare provider who has received additional training) and complete a baseline survey, after which they will receive usual care from their healthcare providers. Patients will be administered another survey at 3 months and a final survey at 6 months. After study completion (about 6-months after the initial prevention visit), patients will be invited to receive ongoing support from a trained, volunteer peer health coach, for up to six months. The coach will support the patient as she works towards achieving personalized health goals to reduce her risk of chronic diseases, including cancer.
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 40 Years
- Maximum age
- 68 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * Patient identifies as a woman; * Patient is 40-68yo; * Patient has an email address; * Patient has at least one behavioural risk factor not at target or at least one cancer screening overdue as defined below: * Score of less than 9 on the Mediterranean Diet Tool * Less than 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week * Smoked a cigarette within the last 30 days * Average number of drinks per day is ≥1 and/or has \>1 drink on any single occasion * Due or overdue for one or more of breast, cervical or colorectal cancer screenings; * Patient has a valid number for the provincial health insurance program (Ontario Health Insurance Program \[OHIP\]); and * Patient's medical records for, at least the previous 3 years are accessible through their family physician. Exclusion Criteria: * Patient is unable to give informed consent in English due to language, literacy, or competence; * Patient is unable or unwilling to communicate with the study team to collect outcomes in English via both email and phone; or * Patient's primary care provider has identified medical comorbidities or other conditions at baseline that might interfere with the patient's ability to follow through on the intervention.
References
Publications (3)
- BACKGROUNDGrunfeld E, Manca D, Moineddin R, Thorpe KE, Hoch JS, Campbell-Scherer D, Meaney C, Rogers J, Beca J, Krueger P, Mamdani M; BETTER Trial Investigators. Improving chronic disease prevention and screening in primary care: results of the BETTER pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. BMC Fam Pract. 2013 Nov 20;14:175. doi: 10.1186/1471-2296-14-175. PMID 24252125
- BACKGROUNDBodenheimer TS, Smith MD. Primary care: proposed solutions to the physician shortage without training more physicians. Health Aff (Millwood). 2013 Nov;32(11):1881-6. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0234. PMID 24191075
- DERIVEDKithulegoda N, Williams C, Senthilmurugan A, Aimola S, Atkinson J, Banerjee AT, Bazeghi F, Bender JL, Flynn S, Ghatage L, Goulbourne E, Grunfeld E, Heisey R, Rao A, Sutcliffe K, Lofters A, Ivers NM. Assessing the effectiveness of "BETTER Women", a community-based, primary care-linked peer health coaching programme for chronic disease prevention: protocol for a pragmatic, wait-list controlled, type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial. BMJ Open. 2024 Jul 24;14(7):e085933. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-085933. PMID 39053957