Journal article

A shared-care model of obesity treatment for 3-10 year old children: Protocol for the HopSCOTCH randomised controlled trial

Melissa Wake, Kate Lycett, Matthew A Sabin, Jane Gunn, Kay Gibbons, Cathy Hutton, Zoe McCallum, Elissa York, Michael Stringer, Gary Wittert

BMC PEDIATRICS | Published : 2012

Abstract

Background: Despite record rates of childhood obesity, effective evidence-based treatments remain elusive. While prolonged tertiary specialist clinical input has some individual impact, these services are only available to very few children. Effective treatments that are easily accessible for all overweight and obese children in the community are urgently required. General practitioners are logical care providers for obese children but high-quality trials indicate that, even with substantial training and support, general practitioner care alone will not suffice to improve body mass index (BMI) trajectories. HopSCOTCH (the Shared Care Obesity Trial in Children) will determine whether a shared..

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Grants

Awarded by National Science Foundation


Funding Acknowledgements

The trial is funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC Project Grant 491212). We would like to thank all the children, parents, obesity specialists (MAS, ZM, KG, Michele Campbell and Ms Elisha Matthews), GPs and practice staff who took part in the trial. We also gratefully acknowledge the input and support of PCS and Mr Michael Stringer of Knowsys in developing, deploying and managing the shared-care software. MW was part-funded by NHMRC Population Health Career Development Grants 284556 and 546405 and MAS by NHMRC Professional Training Fellowship 1012201. Murdoch Childrens Research Institute is supported by the Victorian Government's Operational Infrastructure Support Program.