Loughborough University
Browse
PIIS0140673616318931.pdf (221.52 kB)

Screening and brief intervention for obesity in primary care: a parallel, two-arm, randomised trial

Download (221.52 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-13, 13:29 authored by Paul Aveyard, Amanda Lewis, Sarah Tearne, Kathryn Hood, Anna Christian-Brown, Peymane Adab, Rachna Begh, Kate Jolly, Amanda DaleyAmanda Daley, Amanda Farley, Deborah Lycett, Alecia Nickless, Ly-Mee Yu, Lise Retat, Laura Webber, Laura Pimpin, Susan A. Jebb
Background Obesity is a common cause of non-communicable disease. Guidelines recommend that physicians screen and offer brief advice to motivate weight loss through referral to behavioural weight loss programmes. However, physicians rarely intervene and no trials have been done on the subject. We did this trial to establish whether physician brief intervention is acceptable and effective for reducing bodyweight in patients with obesity. Methods In this parallel, two-arm, randomised trial, patients who consulted 137 primary care physicians in England were screened for obesity. Individuals could be enrolled if they were aged at least 18 years, had a body-mass index of at least 30 kg/m 2 (or at least 25 kg/m 2 if of Asian ethnicity), and had a raised body fat percentage. At the end of the consultation, the physician randomly assigned participants (1:1) to one of two 30 s interventions. Randomisation was done via preprepared randomisation cards labelled with a code representing the allocation, which were placed in opaque sealed envelopes and given to physicians to open at the time of treatment assignment. In the active intervention, the physician offered referral to a weight management group (12 sessions of 1 h each, once per week) and, if the referral was accepted, the physician ensured the patient made an appointment and offered follow-up. In the control intervention, the physician advised the patient that their health would benefit from weight loss. The primary outcome was weight change at 12 months in the intention-to-treat population, which was assessed blinded to treatment allocation. We also assessed asked patients' about their feelings on discussing their weight when they have visited their general practitioner for other reasons. Given the nature of the intervention, we did not anticipate any adverse events in the usual sense, so safety outcomes were not assessed. This trial is registered with the ISRCTN Registry, number ISRCTN26563137. Findings Between June 4, 2013, and Dec 23, 2014, we screened 8403 patients, of whom 2728 (32%) were obese. Of these obese patients, 2256 (83%) agreed to participate and 1882 were eligible, enrolled, and included in the intention-to-treat analysis, with 940 individuals in the support group and 942 individuals in the advice group. 722 (77%) individuals assigned to the support intervention agreed to attend the weight management group and 379 (40%) of these individuals at tended, compared with 82 (9%) participants who were allocated the advice intervention. In the entire study population, mean weight change at 12 months was 2·43 kg with the support intervention and 1·04 kg with the advice intervention, giving an adjusted difference of 1·43 kg (95% CI 0·89–1·97). The reactions of the patients to the general practitioners' brief interventions did not differ significantly between the study groups in terms of appropriateness (adjusted odds ratio 0·89, 95% CI 0·75–1·07, p=0·21) or helpfulness (1·05, 0·89–1·26, p=0·54); overall, four ( < 1%) patients thought their intervention was inappropriate and unhelpful and 1530 (81%) patients thought it was appropriate and helpful. Interpretation A behaviourally-informed, very brief, physician-delivered opportunistic intervention is acceptable to patients and an effective way to reduce population mean weight. Funding The UK National Prevention Research Initiative.

Funding

The UK National Prevention Research Initiative.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

The Lancet

Volume

388

Issue

10059

Pages

2492 - 2500

Citation

AVEYARD, P. ... et al., 2016. Screening and brief intervention for obesity in primary care: a parallel, two-arm, randomised trial. The Lancet, 388 (10059), pp. 2492 - 2500.

Publisher

© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Publication date

2016-10-24

Notes

This is an Open Access article under the CC BY license.

ISSN

0140-6736

eISSN

1474-547X

Language

  • en

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC