198 A virtual community of practice for the empowerment of patients with ischemic heart disease (e-mpodera2): a randomized controlled trial

<h3>Introduction</h3> Virtual Communities of Practice (vCoP) may play a key role connecting like- minded individuals and fostering knowledge sharing and growth. vCoPs offer valuable information, peer support, and resource sharing. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a vCoP in the improvement of the activation of patients with Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD). <h3>Methods</h3> We conducted a randomized controlled trial. 282 patients with IHD from Madrid, Catalonia and Canary Islands were randomly allocated to intervention or control group. Patients were anonymized and the statistician was blinded to group allocation. The intervention was a multicomponent tailored vCoP built on the Web 2.0 concept and focused on skills toward patient empowerment. The primary outcome was the Patient Activation Measure score. Secondary outcomes were: Attitudes towards disease (Self-efficacy Managing Chronic Disease Scale); adherence to Mediterranean diet (Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener); level of physical activity (International Physical Activity Questionnaire); depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9); anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-A); medication adherence (Adherence to Refill and Medication Scale-e); and health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L). A linear regression model of mixed effects was carried out to estimate the effect of participating in the VCoP. <h3>Results</h3> Significant differences in adherence to Mediterranean diet were found favoring the intervention at 6 months (B = 0.48, 95%CI: 0.06, 0.90), 12 months (B = 0.78, 95%CI: 0.34, 1.22), and 18 months (B = 0.86, 95%CI: 0.36, 1.35). No significant changes among data collection points were found for the other variables. <h3>Discussion and Conclusions</h3> Our results suggest that VCoP can be useful to promote healthy habits. Nonetheless, aspects such as patient activation might require other types of interventions.