Table 9.
Lifestyle Medicine and Mainstream Medicine.
| Instructions: Please rate your level of agreement, or disagreement, with the following questions about lifestyle medicine practice as it relates to mainstream medicine, overall | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statement (Respondents, N = 351) | Likert category, % | Agree, % (Response, mean) a | ||||
| Agree (strongly) | Neutral | Disagree (strongly) | Not ABLM certified b | ABLM diplomate | P-Value c | |
| All primary care physicians should be trained in the principles and practice of lifestyle medicine (n = 351) | 97 (75) | 2 | <1 | 98 (1.28) | 96 (1.29) | .742 |
| All physicians, regardless of specialty, should be trained in principles and practice of lifestyle medicine (e.g., as part of the ACGME common program requirements) (n = 350) | 93 (60) | 4 | 3 (<1) | 91 (1.50) | 93 (1.51) | .882 |
| All primary care physicians should be trained in ITLC (n = 340) | 47 (22) | 28 | 25 (4) | 52 (2.41) | 45 (2.71) | .021 |
| All physicians, regardless of specialty, should be trained in ITLC (n = 339) | 28 (12) | 30 | 43 (10) | 33 (2.89) | 25 (3.26) | .002 |
| Anything less than ITLC (e.g., fellowship training) runs the risk of making lifestyle medicine, in general, appear less effective than it really is in managing chronic disease (n = 339) | 21 (4) | 27 | 52 (9) | 16 (3.42) | 24 (3.32) | .499 |
| Any use and implementation of lifestyle medicine by physicians, even if not meeting the standards for ITLC, is still beneficial and should be encouraged (n = 350) | 94 (51) | 5 | <1 | 96 (1.53) | 93 (1.57) | .678 |
Abbreviations: ABLM, American Board of Lifestyle Medicine; ITLC, intensive therapeutic lifestyle change.
aAgree percentage includes “agree” and “strongly agree” responses; mean is from 1 (agree strongly) to 5 (disagree strongly).
b37% of respondents identified as not certified by ABLM; 63% identified as diplomates of ABLM.
cIndependent-samples Mann–Whitney U test.