Making Every Contact Count: Health professionals’ experiences of integrating conversations about Snacktivity™ to promote physical activity within routine consultations: A qualitative study

Objective: Helping people to change their health behaviours is becoming a greater feature within the role of health professionals, including through whole system initiatives such as Making Every Contact Count. Health services provide an ideal setting to routinely promote health behaviours, including physical activity. Snacktivity™ is a novel approach that promotes small bouts of physical activity (activity snacks) throughout the day. This study explored health professionals’ initial experiences of delivering a Snacktivity™ intervention to promote physical activity within routine health consultations. A further aim was to investigate health professionals’ ability/fidelity in delivering the Snacktivity™ intervention to their patients. Design. Semi-structured interviews (n=11) and audio recording of consultations (n=46). Setting and participants: Healthcare professionals from a variety of specialisms who delivered the Snacktivity™ intervention within patient consultations. Results: Analyses revealed two higher level themes of interest; (1) health professionals’ conceptualisation of Snacktivity™ (sub-themes: observations/reflections about patients’ understanding, engagement and enthusiasm for delivering the Snacktivity™ intervention); and (2) health professionals’ understanding of Snacktivity™ and experience of delivering the intervention (sub themes: delivering Snacktivity™; limitations, challenges and possible improvements). Consultation audio recordings demonstrated health professionals delivered the Snacktivity™ intervention with high levels of fidelity. Health professionals were proficient and supportive of delivering the Snacktivity™ intervention within consultations although practical barriers to implementation such as time constraints were raised, and confidence in doing so was mixed. Conclusions: Health professionals were proficient and supportive of delivering the Snacktivity intervention within consultations. The primary barrier to implementation was the time to deliver it, however, gaining greater experience of the intervention and improving behaviour change counselling skills may reduce this barrier.