Guided Self-help for Families With an Overweight Child (GSH)

University of California San Diego

Status: Completed

Conditions: Obesity

Treatments: Other: Delayed Treatment Group; Other: Immediate Treatment Group

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT01145833

1R21DK080266-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

081129

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether a home based program can teach parents and moderately overweight kids who are of 8-12 years old with a BMI% between 85-97%, how to manage their child's weight. The study uses manuals and involves a short visit to the clinic every other week.

Full description

An estimated 4-5 million children between the ages of 6-17 in the United States are obese. Children who are obese are at an increased risk for many negative health consequences in childhood and in adulthood. In addition, these children are at an increased risk for psychosocial consequences in childhood and adolescence, including poor self-esteem, teasing, verbal abuse and social isolation. Guided self-help offers an opportunity to provide empirically based programs to a larger amount of the target population. Once such treatment methods are available, it is possible that the guided self-help treatment for childhood obesity can be disseminated to primary care practitioners, psychologists, nurses, and health educators. Ultimately, the goal of this application is to develop a treatment protocol that can be used by clinics and lay health professionals to intervene with children who are overweight and their parents.

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• child between the ages of 8 & 12
• an moderately overweight child with a BMI% between 85-97%
• child has a parent willing to participate
• child has a parent who can read English at a minimum of a 6th grade level
• family who is willing to commit to treatment attendance and attendance at all assessments.

Exclusion criteria

• Child psychiatric disorder diagnoses (based on parent report)
• Child diagnoses of a serious current physical disease (such as diabetes)
• Child who is taking medications that may impact their weight
• Child with physical difficulties that limit the ability to exercise
• Child with an active eating disorder
• Child and parent will be moving out of the San Diego County before study completion
• Child and/or parent has a modified diet due to religious or socially conscious reasons (such as Vegan, vegetarian)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Immediate treatment group

Active Comparator group

Description:

The immediate treatment group begins the 5-month treatment immediately after baseline assessment.

Treatment:

Other: Immediate Treatment Group

Delayed Treatment Group

Other group

Description:

The delayed treatment group serves as the control group. This group starts treatment 5 months after the baseline assessment. No intervention is involved during this 5-month waiting period. After 5 months, the delayed group is assessed for the second time and then begins the 5-month treatment.

Treatment:

Other: Delayed Treatment Group