The British Hospital educates on health to improve the life quality of its members

In the framework of the celebration of the Heart Week, forty new graduates of the British Hospital Health Education groups received their diplomas, after participating for nine months of workshops aimed at prevention, education and information in areas such as food, physical activity and stress management.

This health prevention and promotion initiative has been going on for more than 23 years and more than 1000 people have gone through it, who, for the most part, could change their habits and improve their life quality, explained Dr. Roberto Superchi, a cardiologist and workshop coordinator.

The specialist explained that the distribution of diplomas to those who took the Health Education course during 2018, within the framework of the Heart Week, has the symbolic value of returning to “the attitudes which are worked” under the modality of workshops.

For Superchi it is essential to think about the importance of “taking into account” for each of the participants and consequently “taking charge of health”. Within this context, in each delivery of diplomas, participants give testimony of their experience and the path they have taken to set aside habits or behaviours that harm us. "It's about not relapsing into known behaviours," he mentioned.

 At the beginning and at the end of the course, a set of risk factors are evaluated in relation to each patient, such as body mass index, diet, level of physical activity, attitude and somatic vulnerability, understood as the risk of getting sick according to the way of thinking of the person.

 From the evaluations it appears that at the beginning of the course most patients register between 4 and 6 risk factors and at the end of it between 0 and 2. Thus, the improvement obtained in the majority or all the parameters considered becomes tangible. "It's about seeing if the work we do is an effective tool, if it works," Superchi graphed.

 The workshops are led by Superchi, with the support of two psychologists and a nutritionist, and the members arrive basically by referrals from other members, through the Hospital's website or on the recommendation of their treating doctors.

The average age of the 2018 group was between 55 and 57 years and two thirds of the participants were women.

 “Changes in people are always directed by an emotional motivation. Developing that degree of affection and unconditional protection of oneself is the challenge, what we look for during the course of the workshops. It is educational precisely because it plays affectivity,” explained Superchi.

 In parallel to the Health Education course, the team of specialists carries out workshops for stress reduction and for the management of hypertension.

For next year, the completion of Health Education course is planned, from March to November, of five stress reduction workshops, with a quota of 25 people each, and one of hypertension, with the same number of participants.

 They are addressed to British Hospital members, they are free and registrations for their 2020 editions are already opened.