Counselling tool «iris»

 

Personalized prevention counselling «iris»

 

With the counselling tool «Prevention counselling in practice - from frustration to pleasure in 2 hours», Swissprevent has developed an interprofessional, practice-based training module in the field of prevention that can be used with the help of the desktop application «iris». It is an interactive web tool for visualizing risk and opportunity constellations of fictitious or real patients. 

 

From knowledge-based advice to the development of a patient-centered healthcare project
With the «iris» counselling tool, you will learn an interactive, patient-oriented approach to prevention counselling in the healthcare sector. In just about 30 minutes, you can use the counselling tool to create a multifactorial profile for a fictitious or real person for whom you would like to develop a counselling strategy that is as sustainable as possible.

Another component of this practical counselling tool is the general recommendations for prevention counselling, on which the «iris» concept is based.

 

General aspects of health counselling

 

General recommendations for prevention counselling

We distinguish between lifestyle risk factors such as exercise, diet, psychosocial factors, smoking, sleep (health factors) and other risk factors in the sense of metabolic factors such as hypertension, diabetes, lipometabolic disorders (especially hypercholesterolaemia) and obesity, which are included in our advice. These factors are directly related to people and their behaviour. Lifestyle and risk factors can be influenced by systematic prevention.

 

As risks associated with sleep disorders, mental health and increased alcohol consumption/addiction exceed the possibilities of a meaningful intervention in the context of a relatively brief lifestyle intervention, they are mentioned but not integrated into the present counselling tool for an intervention. This makes the additional information that can be accessed and used as required all the more important.

If several lifestyle risk factors are present, the intervention should be prioritised according to the patient's wishes and possibilities (individual strengths and weaknesses, self-efficacy, resilience) and the individual risk.

 

For metabolic disorders, a combined intervention with lifestyle changes and drug treatment is usually necessary. There are nationally and internationally recognised guidelines on how to proceed, which recommend lifestyle intervention first if the risk factor is less pronounced, which is only combined with drug therapy if the results are unsatisfactory. If a single risk factor is very pronounced or if several risk factors occur in combination, a combined lifestyle/medication intervention is recommended from the outset.

 

In the case of complex interventions relating to lifestyle and metabolism, individual consultations are generally not sufficient to achieve the goal and participation in an interdisciplinary prevention/rehabilitation programme is recommended, which enables support over a longer period of time with a correspondingly higher chance of success.

 

After the introduction via a training video and/or at a training event and consideration of the above recommendations for prevention counselling, you can now access the desktop application of the interactive counselling tool «iris»: iris.swissprevent.ch/en

 

 

Brief instructions for the «iris» counselling tool
Below you will find an overview of the structure of the "iris" counselling tool. 

 

Over several levels, a multi-dimensional picture of the life situation and the resources of the selected person is built up in order to make complex relationships visible and to develop a sustainable counselling strategy.

 

An assistant guides you through the tool and offers help on the content and how to use the interactive elements (simply click on the cloudy symbol to replay the assistant's explanations).



 

Additional knowledge and tips on the individual terms can be obtained via the question marks.



 

Level 1: The text boxes and sliders are used to determine name, age and health behaviour with regard to lifestyle. The other risk factors are placed on the screen using drag & drop and linked to the existing risk factors. The assessment of the significance of the individual risk factors is based on the patient's overall situation and on the additional information on the individual terms, which is opened by clicking on the question marks.



 

Level 2: The various aspects of the "life situation" and "personality resources" are analysed. Firstly, the risk/opportunity assessment is carried out using the slider. The individual situations are then recorded using keywords and supplemented by an individual text, from which the respective opportunities for intervention can be seen. The examples provided for the life situation merely serve as reference points for a text that is formulated as specifically as possible.



 

Level 3: A chat with the assistant helps to combine all aspects and find a counselling strategy. 

 

At the end, the project can be saved as a link and shared.
 
Important note
To be able to access your project, the project must be saved at the end of the app. You must save the link on your computer. 
This can also be selected during input using the round menu button.

 

Menu button (round dot at the bottom of the navigation in the "iris" app) The menu button takes you to the prevention landscape, where you can access all further links at any time. You can also save your project there (please save the link so that you can access it again). The menu button also takes you to the app instructions.