Overweight and obese adolescents: What turns them off physical activity?

A systematic review of qualitative studies was undertaken to understand the barriers to physical activity experienced by adolescents who were overweight or obese. From a search of electronic databases and ‘grey’ literature, published between 1950 and 2009, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria. Bronfenbrenner’s model of human development provided an ecological lens for identifying and synthesising barriers to physical activity. Two reviewers appraised study quality. Miles and Huberman’s cross-case analysis was integrated with thematic networking to synthesize the individual, interpersonal and environmental level barriers for boys and girls of different ethnicities and socioeconomic status, across school settings and generalised context. Thirty-five barriers were identified, 13 of which occurred in physical activity situations in the school setting, 18 were not linked to a specific setting, and the remainder were common across both contexts. The fact that these barriers emerged from studies that focused on topics such as victimisation and mental health is particularly poignant and reflects the potentially pervasive influence of adolescent’s excessive weight not only in relation to physical activity situations but other aspects of their lives. Furthermore, socioeconomic status and ethnicity was poorly considered, with only one study linking these participant characteristics to quotations and discussing the potential implications. At present, there are few qualitative studies with sufficiently thick description or interpretive validity that provide insight into this vulnerable group of adolescents, and give them a voice to influence policy and practice

An ecological and theoretical deconstruction of a school-based obesity prevention program in Mexico

BACKGROUND: Ecological intervention programs are recommended to prevent overweight and obesity in children. The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) in Mexico implemented a successful ecological intervention program to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors in school age children. This study assessed the integration of ecological principles and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) constructs in this effective school-based obesity prevention program implemented in 15 elementary schools in Mexico City. METHODS: Two coders applied the Intervention Analysis Procedure (IAP) to “map” the program’s integration of ecological principles. A checklist gauged the use of SCT theory in program activities. RESULTS: Thirty-two distinct intervention strategies were implemented in one setting (i.e., school) to engage four different target-groups (students, parents, school representatives, government) across two domains (Nutrition and Physical Activity). Overall, 47.5% of the strategies targeted the school infrastructure and/or personnel; 37.5% of strategies targeted a key political actor, the Public Education Secretariat while fewer strategies targeted parents (12.5%) and children (3%). More strategies were implemented in the Nutrition domain (69%) than Physical Activity (31%). The most frequently used SCT construct within both intervention domains was Reciprocal Determinism (e.g., where changes to the environment influence changes in behavior and these behavioral changes influence further changes to the environment); no significant differences were observed in the use of SCT constructs across domains. CONCLUSIONS: Findings provide insight into a promising combination of strategies and theoretical constructs that can be used to implement a school-based obesity prevention program. Strategies emphasized school-level infrastructure/personnel change and strong political engagement and were most commonly underpinned by Reciprocal Determinism for both Nutrition and Physical Activity

Assessing community readiness online: A concurrent validation study

BACKGROUND: Community readiness for facilitation and uptake of interventions can impact the success of community-based prevention efforts. As currently practiced, measuring community readiness can be a resource intensive process, compromising its use in evaluating multisite community-based prevention efforts. The purpose of this study was to develop, test and validate a more efficient online version of an existing community readiness tool and identify potential problems in completing assessments. This study was conducted in the context of a complex community-based childhood obesity prevention program in South Australia. METHODS: Following pre-testing, an online version of the community readiness tool was created, wherein respondents, with detailed knowledge of their community and prevention efforts, rated their communities on five anchored rating scales (Knowledge of Efforts, Leadership, Knowledge of the Issue, Community Climate, and Resources). Respondents completed the standard, over-the-phone community readiness interview (“gold standard”) and the new online survey. Paired t-test, St. Laurent’s correlation coefficient and intra-class correlation (ICC) were used to determine the validity of the online tool. Contact summary forms were completed after each interview to capture interview quality. RESULTS: Twenty-five respondents completed both assessments. There was a statistically significant difference in the overall community readiness scores between the two methods (paired t-test p = 0.03); online scores were consistently higher than interview scores. St. Laurent’s correlation of 0.58 (95 % CI 0.42–0.73) was moderate; the ICC of 0.65 (95 % CI 0.35–0.83) was good. Only for the leadership and resources dimensions was there no statistically significant difference between the scores from the two methods (p = 0.61, p = 0.08 respectively). St Laurent’s correlation (r = 0.83, 95 % CI 0.71–0.92) and the ICC (0.78, 95 % CI 0.57–0.90) were excellent for leadership. Qualitative results from the standard interview method suggest that some respondents felt reluctant to answer questions on behalf of other community members. This may have impacted their self-selected ratings and/or responses to questions during the interview. CONCLUSIONS: Concurrent validity for the online method was supported for the Leadership dimension only. However, the online method holds promise as it reduces time and resource burden, allowing for a quicker return of results to the community to inform program planning, implementation and evaluations to improve community health

Psychological distress mediates the association between daytime sleepiness and consumption of sweetened products: Cross-sectional findings in a Catholic Middle-Eastern Canadian community

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations between consumption of sweetened products, daytime sleepiness (DS) and psychological distress (PD) in a Catholic Middle-Eastern Canadian community, and to test the hypothesis that the association between DS and consumption of sweetened products is mediated by PD. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTING: A Catholic Middle-Eastern Canadian community. PARTICIPANTS: 186 men and women aged between 18 and 60 years. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Sweetened product consumption was measured using a food frequency questionnaire (total sugars/day). DS and PD were measured using standardised questionnaires. The generalised linear model was used to estimate associations between sweetened product consumption, age, sex, self-reported body mass index, DS and PD. Baron and Kenny's four-step approach in addition to the Sobel test were used to establish mediation. RESULTS: Average DS score was 8.2 (SD=4.5) with 19.5% having excessive scores (>12). Mean PD score was 20.8 (SD=6.2) with 11.8% having high distress scores. Average consumption of sweetened products was 15.5 g/day (SD=13.9). Baron and Kenny's three steps to establish partial mediation were confirmed. First, DS was associated with consumption of sweetened products (p<0.03). Second, DS and PD were correlated (r=0.197; p<0.04). Third, PD was associated with consumption of sweetened products (p<0.01) when both PD and DS were entered as predictors in a multivariate regression. However, Baron and Kenny's fourth step to establish complete mediation was not met. The effect of DS on consumption of sweetened products controlling for PD was reduced, but it was not zero. Finally, the Sobel test was significant (2.14; p<0.03). CONCLUSIONS: The association between DS and consumption of sweetened products in the Catholic Middle-Eastern Canadian community is partially mediated by psychological distress. Further work should test this mediation relationship in larger samples and verify the potential effects of other sleep variables in this relationship

Factors influencing health care utilisation among Aboriginal cardiac patients in central Australia: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: Aboriginal Australians suffer from poorer overall health compared to the general Australian population, particularly in terms of cardiovascular disease and prognosis following a cardiac event. Despite such disparities, Aboriginal Australians utilise health care services at much lower rates than the general population. Improving health care utilisation (HCU) among Aboriginal cardiac patients requires a better understanding of the factors that constrain or facilitate use. The study aimed to identify ecological factors influencing health care utilisation (HCU) for Aboriginal cardiac patients, from the time of their cardiac event to 6–12 months post-event, in central Australia. METHODS: This qualitative descriptive study was guided by an ecological framework. A culturally-sensitive illness narrative focusing on Aboriginal cardiac patients’ “typical” journey guided focus groups and semi-structured interviews with Aboriginal cardiac patients, non-cardiac community members, health care providers and community researchers. Analysis utilised a thematic conceptual matrix and mixed coding method. Themes were categorised into Predisposing, Enabling, Need and Reinforcing factors and identified at Individual, Interpersonal, Primary Care and Hospital System levels. RESULTS: Compelling barriers to HCU identified at the Primary Care and Hospital System levels included communication, organisation and racism. Individual level factors related to HCU included language, knowledge of illness, perceived need and past experiences. Given these individual and health system barriers patients were reliant on utilising alternate family-level supports at the Interpersonal level to enable their journey. CONCLUSION: Aboriginal cardiac patients face significant barriers to HCU, resulting in sub-optimal quality of care, placing them at risk for subsequent cardiovascular events and negative health outcomes. To facilitate HCU amongst Aboriginal people, strategies must be implemented to improve communication on all levels and reduce systemic barriers operating within the health system

Effect of stigma reduction intervention strategies on HIV test uptake in low- and middle-income countries:A realist review protocol

Background Several stigma reduction intervention strategies have been developed and tested for effectiveness in terms of increasing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) test uptake. These strategies have been more effective in some contexts and less effective in others. Individual factors, such as lack of knowledge and fear of disclosure, and social-contextual factors, such as poverty and illiteracy, might influence the effect of stigma reduction intervention strategies on HIV test uptake in low- and middle-income countries. So far, it is not clearly known how the stigma reduction intervention strategies interact with these contextual factors to increase HIV test uptake. Therefore, we will conduct a review that will synthesize existing studies on stigma reduction intervention strategies to increase HIV test uptake to better understand the mechanisms underlying this process in low- and middle-income countries. Methods A realist review will be conducted to unpack context-mechanism-outcome configurations of the effect of stigma reduction intervention strategies on HIV test uptake. Based on a scoping review, we developed a preliminary theoretical framework outlining a potential mechanism of how the intervention strategies influence HIV test uptake. Our realist synthesis will be used to refine the preliminary theoretical framework to better reflect mechanisms that are supported by existing evidence. Journal articles and grey literature will be searched following a purposeful sampling strategy. Data will be extracted and tested against the preliminary theoretical framework. Data synthesis and analysis will be performed in five steps: organizing extracted data into evidence tables, theming, formulating chains of inference from the identified themes, linking the chains of inference and developing generative mechanisms, and refining the framework. Discussion This will be the first realist review that offers both a quantitative and a qualitative exploration of the available evidence to develop and propose a theoretical framework that explains why and how HIV stigma reduction intervention strategies influence HIV test uptake in low- and middle-income countries. Our theoretical framework is meant to provide guidance to program managers on identifying the most effective stigma reduction intervention strategies to increase HIV test uptake. We also include advice on how to effectively implement these strategies to reduce the rate of HIV transmission.status: publishe

The Promise of Autonomy Supportive Contexts to Promote Youth Participatory Competence

A municipal youth citizenship initiative was implemented with the aim of providing adolescents with autonomy supportive contexts to plan and implement activities that were meaningful to youth and contributed to the collective good. The study purpose was to assess whether autonomy support, operationalized as instrumental practitioner support, influenced youth perceptions of participatory group competence beyond individual level factors. Youth participated in groups of 8 to 20 peers with practitioners facilitating youth participation in collective decision-making, planning and activity implementation. Cross-sectional surveys were completed by 79 of 113 eligible youth participants actively involved in the citizenship initiative implemented during the 2003-04 school year. Practitioner support was significantly related to participatory group competence, beyond perceived self-efficacy and age. Study findings suggest that there may be some merit to the implementation of youth citizenship initiatives that create autonomy supportive contexts and allow youth the opportunity to develop their participatory competence. Experiences such as this may allow young people to flourish as individuals and citizens and thus realize their full potential