Efetividade de infográfico animado sobre estilo de vida saudável para pessoas com doenças cardiometabólicas: ensaio clínico randomizado

Abstract

Introduction: Inadequate lifestyle is directly linked to the development of Cardiometabolic Diseases, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. These conditions affect cardiac, vascular and metabolic function, including obesity, type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Arterial Hypertension. The treatment of these diseases requires a non-pharmacological approach, which requires well-structured and viable educational interventions for application in health services. In this perspective, the use of educational technologies such as animated infographics stands out, which can serve as support for health professionals and users by improving the health/disease process, empowering and facilitating appropriate therapy for each patient. Objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention mediated by animated infographics to improve the lifestyle of people with cardiometabolic diseases. Methodology: This is an experimental study of the randomized, controlled and double-blind clinical trial type, carried out in basic health units in the interior of the State of Ceará/Brazil. The population of interest was composed of patients diagnosed with cardiometabolic diseases and who were being monitored in health services. The educational intervention was carried out using an animated infographic, developed and validated in a previous study, entitled: “Healthy lifestyle habits for people with cardiometabolic diseases”. The intervention group received the application of the animated infographic individually, in addition to the usual care offered in the health units, while the control group received only the usual care offered in the health units. The monitoring lasted three months, with three data collection moments (M0 – baseline; M1 – after one month; M2 – after three months), being carried out from September 2023 to August 2024. The collected data were tabulated in Excel and analyzed according to the established moments, using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 software for statistical analysis. Results: The total sample consisted of 50 patients, of which 27 belonged to the control group and 23 to the intervention group, with a predominance of females in both groups, with 70.43% (19) in the control group and 87.0% (20) in the intervention group, and age between 40 and 59 years. The variation between the values obtained in the questionnaire regarding the initial and final level of knowledge of patients in the control group was 22.7% to 63.6%, while in the intervention group it was 41.7% to 79.2%, with its peak increase at the second collection moment (T1) with p-value <0.001. Regarding changes in lifestyle habits, it was noted that patients in the intervention group achieved better scores regarding “I eat properly” (p-value 0.032), “I don’t smoke” (p-value <0.001), “relaxation” (p-value 0.023), directly influencing the improvement of values corresponding to anthropometric characteristics, such as weight (T0: 72.1 ± 14.8 and T2: 70.2 ± 14.7, p-value: 0.008), BMI (T0: 29.4 ± 6.2 and T2: 29.0 ± 6.2, p-value: 0.011), body fat (T0: 39.2 ± 9.2 and T2: 36.9 ± 9.0, p-value: 0.030), abdominal circumference (T0: 101.5 ± 10.9 and T2: 99.0 ± 11.6, p-value: 0.002). The clinical data systolic blood pressure (T0: 139.4 ± 20.5 and T2: 125.9 ± 24.2, p-value: 0.002) and diastolic blood pressure (T0: 84.0 ± 15.5 and T2: 77.9 ± 23.1, p-value: 0.023) of the IG when compared to the control group, which only obtained improvement in systolic blood pressure values (T0: 135.4 ± 16.5 and T2: 127.9 ± 13.3, p-value: 0.041), as well as the analysis of the improvement in lifestyle in the intervention group identified the gain in knowledge as the most strongly associated factor (β = 0.589, p = 0.002), followed by education (β = 0.461, p=0.043). Conclusion: The intervention with infographics established a significant connection between knowledge acquisition and behavioral change, which was not observed in the control group. Furthermore, the knowledge acquired through the intervention has a greater capacity for improvements in clinical parameters, suggesting greater effectiveness of this type of health education.