Systematic review of continuous self-improvement interventions

Abstract

Although health care providers advise healthy and chronically ill adults to adopt positive health behaviors, traditional interventions focused on motivation and intention have been largely ineffective. Researchers have tested the ability of continuous self-improvement (CSI), an innovative personal system-based intervention, to affect health behavior change at the individual level. This paper systematically reviews CSI interventions focused on improving health behaviors. A search of multiple databases was performed using 'continuous self-improvement' as the search term. Abstracts of identified studies were reviewed to determine if CSI was used as an intervention-regardless of sample size, study type, or language. This review identified nine studies testing the CSI intervention in healthy or chronically ill adults. Effect sizes for the two randomized controlled trials were large. CSI shows promise as an effective intervention across a broad age range for a variety of difficult-to-change behaviors. Future research should address methodologic weaknesses.