Lifestyle InterVEntion Study in General Practice: LIVES - GP

Patients with depression are at a substantially increased risk of chronic physical disease including cardiovascular disease. This may be attributed primarily to an unhealthy lifestyle related to their disorder. Interestingly, the unhealthy lifestyle feeds back to decreased quality of life and increased depressive symptoms, thus creating a hazardous vicious circle. Consequently, there is a great potential for 'Lifestyle Medicine' for depression. Yet, it is known that patients with depression often have motivational and self-management problems. Therefore an 18 session multimodal lifestyle intervention (MLI) specifically tailored to the needs of depressed patients was developed and piloted in mental health care, with promising results. This research aims to investigate using a process evaluation the feasibility of this MLI in general practice because this is the setting where the majority of patients with depression are treated and results from mental health care are unlikely to apply.

Rationale: Patients with depression are at a substantially increased risk of chronic physical disease including cardiovascular disease. This may be attributed primarily to an unhealthy lifestyle related to their disorder. Interestingly, the unhealthy lifestyle feeds back to decreased quality of life and increased depressive symptoms, thus creating a hazardous vicious circle. Consequently, there is a great potential for 'Lifestyle Medicine' for depression. Yet, it is known that patients with depression often have motivational and self-management problems. Therefore a multimodal lifestyle intervention (MLI) specifically tailored to the needs of depressed patients was developed and piloted in mental health care, with promising results. This research aims to investigate this MLI in general practice because this is the setting where the majority of patients with depression are treated and results from mental health care are unlikely to apply.

Objective: to estimate in general practice the feasibility of conducting a large-scale study on the effectiveness of a MLI for depression, and identify key factors that can influence its successful conduct. In addition, this study aims to obtain an estimate of the variance of outcome measures (mental health, lifestyle factors, functioning, recovery, wellbeing, sleeping quality, self-esteem, quality of life, health care costs, anthropometry and blood pressure).

Study design: An observational single-group prospective cohort study (n = 50) using mixed methods with baseline measurement and two follow-up measurements: after the intervention at 18 weeks and after a follow-up at 42 weeks.

Study population: Patients (18 years or over) with depression and overweight who are being treated in general practice.

Intervention (if applicable): A MLI named (in Dutch) "Gecombineerde Leefstijl Interventie Leef" (GLI-LEEF), developed for patients with depression consisting of several modules (e.g. on physical activity, healthy diet) comprising both individual and group sessions.

Main study parameters/endpoints: implementation feasibility using three of the elements of the 'Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance' (RE-AIM) framework for process evaluation (i.e. Reach, Adoption and Implementation)

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* Diagnosis of depressive symptoms or depressive disorder in the past year as registered in the general practice electronic health record and coded according to the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) as P03 and P76, respectively, or currently treated for depressive symptoms or depressive disorder in general practice.
* At least mild depressive symptom level according to the Quick Inventory Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Report (QIDS-SR) (score ≥6)
* Body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m2 or increased waist circumference (\>88 cm (women) of \>102 cm (men)).

Exclusion Criteria:

* Current treatment in mental health care (GGZ in Dutch)
* Severe somatic / neurological disease at the discretion of the GP
* Currently participating in another lifestyle intervention
* Insufficient proficiency in Dutch
* Inability to read and write