A Preliminary Investigation of Child, Parent and Programme Leader Reflections on Participation in and Delivery of a Family- Based Weight Intervention Programme.

Childhood obesity is considered to be the greatest public health risk to children today, placing young people at considerable risk for adult obesity and consequent CVD, diabetes, liver dysfunction, and other morbidities (Doro-Altan et al., 2008; Singh et al., 2008). As a result numerous interventions with the potential to reduce obesity levels or associated risk of chronic diseases have been devised (Steinberger et al., 2003; Flynn et al., 2006). Not withstanding the need for further quantitative evaluation of the effect of such interventions, key publications have now called for qualitative evaluations to be undertaken in order to create an evidence base from the views of participants that may highlight why certain interventions may be more, or less successful (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2006; Luttikhuis et al., 2009).
In response to these very recent calls, this abstract intends to present, from qualitative methods of enquiry, preliminary findings of parent, child and programme leader experiences of, reflections on and future intentions following participation in and delivery of a nationally implemented family-based weight intervention programme in the UK. Data from semi-structured interviews with 6 families who completed the programme in December 2008 and 1 programme leader will be presented. Informal thematic analysis will be utilised to identify emergent themes with data presentation accentuating the qualitative, ‘lived’ experience of the programme and the impact of the various aspects of the intervention on intentions for future behaviours. It is anticipated that the outcomes of this study will help to inform the organisation, content, implementation and nature of future intervention programmes in order to enhance their effectiveness.