Poster Presentation ANZOS-OSSANZ-AOCO Joint Annual Scientific Meeting 2017

Secondary level care of paediatric obesity: A pragmatic implementation study (#254)

Shirley Alexander 1 , Kyra Sim 2 , Anna Gill 3 , Gary Leong 4 , Michelle Cretikos 5 , Hayley Robertson 5 , Ian Caterson 6 , Louise Baur 7 8
  1. Children's Hospital at Westmead, Westmead, NSW, Australia
  2. Sydney Local Health District, Sydney
  3. Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Hospital, Northern Sydney LHD, Sydney
  4. Nepean Hospital, Nepean and Blue Mountains LHD, Sydney
  5. Centre for population health, NSW Ministry of Health, Sydney
  6. The Boden Institute, The University of Sydney, Sydney
  7. The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Westmead, NSW, Australia
  8. Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Background:

In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, one in four school-aged children and adolescents are overweight or have obesity. Despite this prevalence, weight issues are rarely recognised or managed when patients attend clinical services and there are few appropriate clinical services available.

Methods:

Several Local Health Districts (LHDs) are implementing a new service aiming to deliver integrated weight management services for children and adolescents. This presents a unique opportunity to research the implementation and integration of these new services alongside established services to determine the clinical effectiveness and impact of the services. No such research has been undertaken previously in Australia. A submission was made through the Translational Research Grant Scheme, NSW, which has been successful and funding has been secured for a two year period from July 2017 to June 2019.

The study aims to evaluate existing services, and then to design, test, evaluate and integrate new services as they are established. We plan to:

  1. Audit existing tertiary and secondary care models for managing children above a healthy weight.
  2. Evaluate the newly established secondary care clinics, models of care and healthcare pathways.
  3. Determine what factors, including acceptability, reach, participation and retention rates, effectiveness and sustainability, are important for different models of care through focus groups and stakeholder interviews.
  4. Undertake economic analysis to determine cost of services.

Outcomes:

The findings will feed directly into the NSW Premier’s Priority work on “Tackling Childhood Obesity” and improve the design and delivery of local services, enhancing the accessibility, acceptability, reach and impact of services for children and adolescents above a healthy weight.