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Introduction: Diabetes, a long-term condition increasing in prevalence, requires ongoing healthcare management. Exercise alongside lifestyle education and support is effective for diabetes management. Aim: To investigate clinical outcomes and acceptability of a community-based lifestyle programme for adults with diabetes/prediabetes at programme completion and 3-month follow-up. Methods: The 12-week community programme included twice-weekly sessions of self-management education and exercise, supervised by a physiotherapist, physiotherapy students and a nurse. Clinical outcomes assessed were cardiorespiratory fitness, waist circumference, exercise behaviour and self-efficacy. A standardised evaluation form was used to assess programme acceptability. Results: Clinically significant improvements were found from baseline (n = 36) to programme completion (n = 25) and 3-months follow-up (n = 20) for the six minute walk test (87 m (95%CI 65-109; p ⩽ 0.01), 60 m (95%CI 21-100; p ⩽ 0.01)), waist circumference (-3 cm (95%CI -6 to -1), -3 cm (95%CI -6 to 1)), exercise behaviour (aerobic exercise 53 min/week (95%CI 26 to 81; p ⩽ 0.01), 71 min/week (95%CI 25 to 118; p ⩽ 0.01)) and self-efficacy (0.7 (95%CI -0.2 to 1.6), 0.8 (95%CI 0.04 to 1.5)). Good programme acceptability was demonstrated by themes suggesting a culturally supportive, motivating, friendly, informative atmosphere within the programme. The attrition rate was 30% but there were no adverse medical events related to the programme. Discussion: The programme was safe and culturally acceptable and outcomes demonstrated clinical benefit to participants. The attrition rate was largely due to medical reasons unrelated to the programme. This model of a community-based lifestyle programme has the potential to be reproduced in other regions and in adults with similar long-term conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare support workers face challenging situations in their day‐to‐day work but may have minimal training on how to deal with such incidents. Although staff training is often recommended as an essential part of any comprehensive approach for preventing and managing workplace violence, there is paucity of evidence on the content and effectiveness of such training. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of an intervention (communication skills training) to reduce the experience of aggression for healthcare support workers. A two arm, cluster randomised, single‐blinded, controlled trial among healthcare support workers in nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and District Health Boards (DHBs) in New Zealand was conducted. The trial was conducted across 14 NGOs and DHB in Otago, Southland, and Auckland regions of New Zealand. One hundred and twenty‐seven participants were randomised to one of two groups. Both the intervention (communication skills) and control condition (mindfulness) were group‐based, fully scripted, and structured training interventions that consisted of four once weekly workshops that were facilitated by one of two nonclinical facilitators. Measurements of perceived aggression, psychological well‐being, and distress and communication competence were taken pre‐, post‐, 3 months' post‐, and 6 months' postintervention. There was a significant drop in the rate of aggression over time with a mean score and standard deviation of 10.37 (9.169) at baseline dropping to 6.07 (6.923) for the Perception of Patient Aggression Scale‐New Zealand across both intervention and control. Equivalent results were noted with increased psychological well‐being and communication competence and decreased distress with both interventions. This was sustained at 6 months' follow‐up. However, the between groups effect did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups. Both mindfulness and communication skills training can reduce the experience of aggression reported by healthcare support workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]