How psychological intervention may impact in dealing physical frailty? : a study protocol of an European Project (664367 — FOCUS — HP-PJ-2014)

OBJECTIVES: PoliFIT-INFOcus is a follow-on study , part of the FOCUS project in which we developed guidelines concerning interventions to prevent or treat frailty. The study is a psycho-physio-educational group-based intervention to promote physical activity in older people to test the impact of FOCUS guidelines in practice. METHODS: 3-arm randomized controlled trial involving participants of the PoliFIT study. RESUTS: Participants will be randomly assigned to: 1) Receiving a booklet including advice on physical activity, nutrition and health psychology topics (control group) 2) Booklet+Pedometer+Group-based sessions with a knowledge-based psychological intervention (intervention 1) 3) Booklet + Pedometer + Group-based training sessions with a motivation-based psychological intervention (intervention 2) Session will be performed by a physiotherapist, a nutritionist and a health psychologist. Outcomes will be changes at 5 months in: average daily step-count , PASE, SPPB and Fried’s criteria score, quality of life/psychological wellbeing, cognitive and functional performance, nutritional status and the occurrence of clinical events (i.e. access to the Emergency Room, hospitalization, falls). CONCLUSIONthe absence of a health psychology component (e.g. behaviour change strategies) is a barrier to the success of some interventions on frailty, including those aimed to impact the physical dimension of frailty. Inclusion of social components (e.g. group-based and or fun-promoting activities) is also a key of success. It is important to promote educational and psychoeducational interventions because they might be low resource demanding and more sustainable program on the long-term.