Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of an eight-week pilot trial using three strategies based on information and communication technologies, and one strategy of printed educational material, for the reduction of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with a high risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Material and methods:

A prospective pre-test-post-test of four groups design was employed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot trial. Thirty-two participants were randomly assigned to one of the four groups of equal number: personal computerised clinical record, a virtual social network, a web page, and printed educational material. The same educational material was presented to all the participants by means of the corresponding strategy. The following measurements were taken at the beginning and end of the pilot trial: body weight, abdominal circumference, blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, and HbA1C, as well as sedentarism level.

Results:

Although an improvement was observed in several risk factors, the only one that obtained a significant difference was body weight in the group that used the web page (P=.032). The level of sedentarism was reduced from 80.95% to 76.19%. The most accessed strategy was the web page, followed by personal clinical record, and social network.

Conclusions:

Despite the limitations of time and sample size of the pilot, significant reductions were achieved in body weight, and non-significant ones in abdominal circumference, HDL-cholesterol, and HbA1C, in three of the four interventions. Using these results a final study was re-designed, at 12 months, with 240 patients with metabolic syndrome.

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