Impact of Psychosocial Risk on Outcomes among Families Seeking Treatment for Obesity

Abstract

Children presenting with increased psychosocial risk have higher attrition and poorer weight outcomes, supporting the need for psychosocial screening as a standard component of pediatric weight management treatment.

A Psychosocial And Lifestyle Assessment For Childhood Obesity: A Scoping Literature Review And Focus Groups With Healthcare Professionals

“…The 11 included articles are listed in Table 1. Two articles focused only on child factors (25,26), whereas the others also focused on parent and family factors as part of the assessment (27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35). Seven articles incorporated the broader healthcare process, including the assessment and the referral and treatment or weight management (26,29,30,(32)(33)(34)(35).…”

“…One major aspect of social factors of the family identi ed in most assessments is the importance of determining family functioning in terms of environment, structure, composition or other aspects (27)(28)(29)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35). Four assessments included ethnicity and cultural factors, albeit to varying extents (28)(29)(30)32).…”

“…These articles differed in the extent to which the factors were described in relation to childhood obesity. Factors reported included adverse events, mental health concerns and eating disorders (27,29,31,35). The social factor of the parents that was most prominently identi ed as being important to take into account was nancial situation (28,29,31,33,34).…”

“…The included articles focused on what to include in a psychosocial and lifestyle assessment. Eight of these articles also paid attention to how to conduct the assessment of psychosocial and lifestyle factors (25,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)35). These ndings were divided into the three most prominent themes: (a) talking about psychosocial factors, lifestyle and weight; (b) the professional-patient relationship; and (c) attitudes of healthcare professionals.…”

Psychosocial assessment of families caring for a child with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, epilepsy or asthma: Psychosocial risk as network of interacting symptoms

“…Furthermore, when left untreated, impaired psychosocial function may intensify with time, becoming more pronounced as children attempt to master more complex tasks that require the integration of multiple social and cognitive domains [2,33,39]. Consequently, one of the main challenges when caring for a chronically or severely ill child is to understand the role of various functional domains [40], such as, the structure and economic situation of the family, the stress reactivity of the caregiver, family beliefs, and patient related problems [41][42][43][44]. More importantly, however, is the relationships and connectivity among these domains [45][46][47].…”