Can a 3-hour educational workshop and the provision of practical tools encourage family physicians to prescribe physical activity as medicine? A pre–post study

OBJECTIVES: To increase, in our sample, the proportion of family physicians who provided their patients with written physical activity prescriptions after the delivery of a 3-hour educational workshop with the provision of practical tools to facilitate behaviour change. DESIGN: A pre–post study. SETTING: Abbotsford and Mission, British Columbia. PARTICIPANTS: All 158 physicians registered with the Abbotsford (121) or Mission (37) Divisions of Family Practice were invited to participate. INTERVENTION: A 3-hour educational workshop combined with practical tools. Educational content of the workshop included (1) assessing patients’ physical activity levels, (2) using motivational interviewing techniques to encourage physical activity and (3) providing written physical activity prescriptions when appropriate. Practical tools to facilitate physician behaviour changes included a ‘physical activity vital sign’, and copies of the Exercise is Medicine Canada Prescription Pad. Participating physicians completed a bespoke questionnaire before and 4 weeks after their attendance at the workshop. OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was the change in the proportion of family physicians who reported providing written physical activity prescriptions. Exploratory outcomes included changes in other physical activity prescription behaviours, the perceived importance of various barriers to prescription, and knowledge and confidence in regards to physical activity prescription. McNemar's test evaluated changes in proportions before and after the workshop, while Wilcoxon signed-rank tests evaluated changes in Likert data. RESULTS: 25 family physicians completed the baseline questionnaire and attended the workshop, with 100% follow-up response rate. The proportion of family physicians who reported providing written physical activity prescriptions in their clinical practice increased significantly (p<0.05), from 10 (40%) at baseline to 17 (68%) 4 weeks after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Educational workshops combined with practical tools appear to be a promising method to encourage the use of written physical activity prescriptions among family physicians in this setting, over the short term.