Table 8.
Intensive Therapeutic Lifestyle Change.
| Instructions: We would appreciate your opinion regarding intensive therapeutic lifestyle change (ITLC), which involves intensive support (often group-based), facilitated by a physician trained and certified in lifestyle medicine, with specific measures of engagement, adherence, and health outcomes. ITLC is generally considered the best way to treat advanced or severe chronic disease, or to achieve disease reversal or remission. In contrast, less intense therapeutic lifestyle interventions are usually sufficient for primary prevention of chronic disease or to achieve risk reduction | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statement (Respondents, N = 351) | Response, % | Yes, % | |||||
| Yes | No | Maybe | Unsure, no opinion | Not ABLM certified a | ABLM diplomate | P-Value b | |
| I practice ITLC or I am involved in a team that practices ITLC (n = 315) | 22 | 71 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 26 | .040 |
| All physicians trained in lifestyle medicine should be able to do ITLC (n = 351) | 57 | 12 | 24 | 7 | 55 | 58 | .709 |
| Physicians who do ITLC should ideally have additional training beyond the basic lifestyle medicine curriculum (n = 351) | 52 | 16 | 22 | 10 | 49 | 54 | .509 |
| Physicians who do ITLC should ideally have specialized residency or fellowship training in the knowledge, skills, and abilities to optimally perform ITLC (n = 351) | 26 | 29 | 31 | 15 | 22 | 29 | .026 |
| I would personally be interested in formal training, such as a fellowship program, to achieve optimal competency in lifestyle medicine (n = 351) | 27 | 37 | 27 | 9 | 24 | 29 | .068 |
| Beyond board certification in lifestyle medicine, it would be beneficial to offer additional subspecialty certification as an intensivist who is fellowship-trained in advanced lifestyle medicine strategies and competencies (n = 351) | 40 | 16 | 30 | 15 | 35 | 42 | .118 |
| If there was a pathway for subspecialty certification as a lifestyle medicine intensivist I would personally be interested in pursuing that recognition | 25 | 32 | 31 | 11 | 24 | 26 | .159 |
| Patients and the public would benefit by knowing that a lifestyle medicine provider had subspecialty certification as a lifestyle medicine intensivist (beyond the current level of specialty certification), with additional competency in ITLC (n = 351) | 40 | 18 | 25 | 18 | 40 | 39 | .988 |
Abbreviations: ABLM, American Board of Lifestyle Medicine; ITLC, intensive therapeutic lifestyle change.
a37% of respondents identified as not certified by ABLM; 63% identified as diplomates of ABLM.
bPearson chi-square.