Cost-effectiveness of Family Based Pediatric Obesity Treatment
Condition: Weight Change; Quality of Life
MeSH terms: Obesity; Pediatric Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      To determine the cost effectiveness of treating the child alone and parent alone to
      traditional family-based method of obesity treatment. It is hypothesized that a family-based
      approach will be more cost effective, and will support the savings and effectiveness of
      treating multiple family members together.
    

Detailed description: 
      Research has shown that family-based treatment programs produce significant short and
      long-term decreases in weight relative to height. Reductions in relative weight are observed
      for both parents and their children, with a significant relationship between parent and child
      relative weight changes.

      Usual care for families with obesity is for the parent and child to be treated separately by
      their individual physicians, often with different types of treatment plans. This may be less
      efficacious for the parent and child than a family-based intervention in which the parent and
      child are treated together. The separate treatments may also be more expensive than
      concurrent treatment following the same treatment plan.

      There are many reasons to hypothesize that a family-based treatment will be more efficacious
      and more cost effective than other formats for treating families with multiple generations of
      obesity. If family members are treated together, they have the same treatment goals. They can
      learn to support each other, model positive behaviors, work together to change behaviors and
      modify the shared family environment. The simultaneous treatment of parents and children in a
      group format, which is how family-based treatments are administered, reduces the time
      therapists provide treatment in comparison to the usual format in which each parent and child
      would be seen individually.

      An important challenge for obesity treatment is to develop efficacious and cost-effective
      interventions to treat pediatric obesity. The goal of this study is to evaluate the efficacy
      and cost effectiveness over 12 month follow-up for 50 families with overweight parents and
      children randomized to family-based behavioral treatment in comparison to the treatment of
      the parents and children separately, by different therapists, which represent usual care for
      families with obese parents and children.
    

Intervention name(s): Individual Behavior Modification; Family-based behavior modification
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Individual behavioral treatment for obesity. Children and parents meeting individually for 15 total behavioral modification intervention sessions.; Family-base behavior treatment for obesity. Children and parents meeting together for 15 total behavioral modification intervention sessions.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Participant)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: weight; cost effectiveness; obesity; family based behavioral treatment