Eight Week Telewellness Program Improves Nutrition Knowledge Among People with Physical Disabilities

Research Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of an eight-week telewellness program for improvements in nutrition knowledge among people with physical disabilities.

Design: Retrospective study of people with disabilities who participated in the Mindfulness, Exercise, and Nutrition to Optimize Resilience (MENTOR) Program from January-December 2021.

Setting: Virtual telewellness program.

Participants: Adults (n=89) ages 22-77 yrs. (mean 52.1±14.4) with a self-reported physical disability with 67.4% using an assistive device for ambulation (n=60).

Interventions: Eight-week, synchronous telewellness program using a commercial platform (Healthie) with built-in Zoom videoconferencing software. Participants attended weekly group classes in mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and health coaching. A Registered Dietitian led the nutrition classes and offered optional nutrition counseling.

Main Outcome Measures: Participants completed the General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire- Revised (GNKQ-R) via the Healthie platform before and after the program. The GNKQ-R consists of four knowledge domains (Dietary Recommendations, Food Groups, Healthy Food Choices, & Diet, Disease and Weight Management) with a total composite score of 0-88 with higher scores indicating higher knowledge. The hypothesis for this retrospective analysis was that participants’ GNKQ-R scores would increase as a result of the MENTOR program. Differences between pre and post total score and sub-scores were assessed using general linear models and reported as mean±standard error.

Results: Pre-intervention total scores ranged from 8-79 and post-intervention total scores ranged from 14-81. Post-intervention scores improved on total GNKQ-R (58.4±1.6 vs. 64.4±1.2 p< 0.001) and the four knowledge domains (Dietary

Recommendations: 12.3±.0.3 vs. 13.4±0.2, p< 0.001; Food Groups: 23.1±0.8 vs. 26.5±0.6, p< 0.001; Healthy Food Choices 9.0 ± 0.3 vs. 9.7±0.4, p=0.01; Diet, Disease, and Weight Management 14.0±0.4 vs 15.0±0.4, p=0.007).

Conclusions: A comprehensive eight-week telewellness program (MENTOR) resulted in statistically significant improvements in nutrition knowledge among people with disabilities. Future research is examining MENTOR’s effects on adoption of healthy food choices and dietary behaviors over the long term.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors report no conflicts of interest.