Xuxi Zhang

years of age at risk of or with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and/or cardiovascular disease (CVD) to self ‐ manage their chronic conditions through the SEFAC intervention which combines the concepts of mindfulness, social engagement as well as ICT support. Furthermore, the project will evaluate (cost) effectiveness, which will provide insight in costs of potential policies contributing to the prevention of chronic conditions. In this project, study sites in four European countries will implement the SEFAC intervention: Rijeka in Croatia, Treviso in Italy, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Camborne in the United Kingdom. Objectives The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the SEFAC intervention in terms of benefits for the target population (citizens ≥ 50 years of age at risk of or with T2DM and/or CVD). The following research questions will be answered: 1. What are the effects of the SEFAC intervention for participants in terms of self ‐ management, healthy lifestyle behavior, social support, stress, depression, sleep and fatigue, adherence to medications and health ‐ related quality of life (HRQoL)? 2. What are the societal cost savings of the SEFAC intervention in terms of reducing healthcare utilization and productivity losses among the target population? 3. To what extent is the target population satisfied with the SEFAC intervention as a whole and with its three specific elements (mindfulness, social engagement and ICT support)? Study hypotheses Our hypothesis is that the SEFAC intervention improves the self ‐ management skills of participants, promotes more favorable lifestyle behaviors, improved social support, reduce participants’ stress, depression, sleeping problems and fatigue and improve participants’ adherence to medication and HRQoL at six month of follow ‐ up compared to baseline. In addition, we hypothesize that society will benefit from the intervention through to a reduced use of healthcare resources and greater productivity. Finally, we hypothesize to reach a satisfaction score of 7 or higher on a 1 ‐ 10 scale for the SEFAC intervention as a whole, with higher scores representing greater satisfaction. METHODS/DESIGN The SEFAC intervention The SEFAC intervention was designed and developed by partners of the SEFAC project and includes the concepts of mindfulness, social engagement as well as ICT support (figure 1), which are offered to participants in parallel. Mindfulness training is offered in a series of 3 to 7 workshops, 2,5 hours each, which will be held once a week for 3 to 7 weeks. Every training will be led by trained mindfulness professionals. The training includes three ‘obligatory’ workshops on training mind and body for health and wellbeing, healthy habits and a healthy mindset as well as four voluntary 208 Chapter 8