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Effects of an Educational Intervention in Patients with Nonalcoholic Hepatic Steatosis

Abstract:

Introduction: Nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis is the hepatic consequence of metabolic syndrome, with a high potential for progression to steatohepatitis and, finally, cirrhosis. Objective: To determine the effects of an educational intervention in patients with nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis from the rural area of the Chambo Canton. Methods: A quasiexperimental study of longitudinal cohort was conducted. The universe was made up of 64 patients with nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis; following a nonprobabilistic sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, the sample was established to be of 53 subjects. The statistical analysis was realized with the program IBM® SPSS® Statistics; descriptive statistics for continuous variables included measures of central tendency and dispersion. For categorical variables, absolute frequencies and percentages were calculated. Inferential statistics included the Mann-Whitney U test, the McNemar's test, and the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. Results: The application of the intervention increased the level of physical activity in participants (p < 0.001); in some cases, it caused disease remission (p < 0.001) and reduced transaminases with values of p < 0.001 and p < 0.005 for aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase, respectively. Conclusions: The application of a health educational intervention promotes the practice of physical activity and, consequently, modifies the activity of nonalcoholic hepatic steatosis in patients with the disease.