An Intervention to Debunk Facts vs. Myths in Intermittent Fasting: A Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

Intermittent fasting (IF) is gaining popularity as an eating regimen to promote health and optimize wellbeing. IF is the voluntary avoidance of food over a period and is not a diet, but an eating behavior (Teong et al., 2021). Despite the increased emphasis on obesity and diet-related diseases, IF education remains lacking in formal training programs and can influence HCC’s attitudes and behaviors when engaging in IF dialogue with patients in clinical settings. Evidence suggests that IF is beneficial for weight loss and has been shown to have positive effects on the brain, heart, liver, muscles, intestines, blood, and various other systems. IF has also been shown to reduce risk factors associated with the development and progression of type II diabetes, neurological disorders, and cancers. Additionally, IF may boost the effectiveness of certain medical and cancer treatments (Armutcu, 2019; Phillips, 2019). The main objective is to determine if an evidence-based education program on intermittent fasting will change healthcare clinicians’ knowledge, attitudes, confidence level, perception of knowledge, and behavior in communicating with adult patients about IF. The presentation aims to fill the knowledge gaps with pertinent evidence-based information, debunk common IF myths, and provide effective communication strategies to help improve HCCs knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and behavior of IF in clinical practice settings. The study is a quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test quality improvement (QI) project including 20 HCCs working at the practice site. Potential participants were identified by snow-ball samplings of various units/clinics at the site. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results from the project indicate that mean knowledge scores compared from baseline to post-education increased, 6.8 (s.d. 3.77) and 12.65 (s.d. 4.83), respectively. Based on the current evidence and the results from this quality-improvement project, HCC education helps improve knowledge, confidence, perceptions, and behaviors of IF in clinical practice settings to promote safe and effective communication with patients