Cost-effectiveness of Family Based Pediatric Obesity Treatment

May 11, 2022 updated by: Leonard Epstein, State University of New York at Buffalo
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.

Study Overview

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.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

50

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • New York
      • Buffalo, New York, United States, 14214
        • SUNY @ Buffalo

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

8 years to 12 years (Child)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Overweight child and parent in each family

Exclusion Criteria:

  • The parent and child must have no dietary or activity limitations that would preclude making the requested behavior changes; no current psychiatric problems and no history of eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder. Families with a first degree relative with any of the mentioned eating disorders will also be excluded. The participating child must be able to read at a 3rd grade level and demonstrate the ability to maintain diet and activity records in a simulated recording interview. Both parent and child must be able to read the English language well enough to understand the consent and assent forms.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Individual Behavioral Modification
Individual behavioral weight control treatment; parent and child are treated separately for 15 total sessions.
Individual behavioral treatment for obesity. Children and parents meeting individually for 15 total behavioral modification intervention sessions.
Active Comparator: Family-based Behavioral Modification
Family-based behavioral weight control treatment; parent and child are treated together for 15 total sessions.
Family-base behavior treatment for obesity. Children and parents meeting together for 15 total behavioral modification intervention sessions.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Standardized BMI
Time Frame: baseline, 6 months, 12 months
The formula is BMI = kg/m2 where kg is a person's weight in kilograms and m2 is their height in metres squared. Children's BMI also accounts for age and sex.
baseline, 6 months, 12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
change in quality adjusted life years (QALY)
Time Frame: baseline, 6 months, 12 months
The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is a measure of the value of health outcomes. Health is calculated by length of life and quality of life. QALY takes the value of years living and the quality into a single index number. The QALY calculation is the change in utility value resulting from the treatment multiplied by the duration of the treatment effect to provide the number of QALYs. QALYs can then be incorporated with medical costs to arrive at a final common denominator of cost/QALY.
baseline, 6 months, 12 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Collaborators

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Leonard H Epstein, PhD, SUNY @ Buffalo

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

October 1, 2007

Primary Completion (Actual)

November 1, 2009

Study Completion (Actual)

November 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 10, 2008

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 10, 2008

First Posted (Estimate)

July 16, 2008

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 16, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 11, 2022

Last Verified

April 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • Cost-effectiveness
  • A-45270 (Other Grant/Funding Number: HealthNow)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Data will be submitted

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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