Abstract
BackgroundCare for overweight children in general practice involves collaboration with parents. Acknowledging the parents’ frames of references is a prerequisite for successful management. We therefore aimed to analyse parental beliefs about the presumed causes and consequences of overweight in children and expectations towards the GP. Moreover, we aimed at comparing the beliefs and expectations of parents of non-overweight children (NOWC) and parents of overweight children (OWC).MethodsA cross-sectional survey. Data were obtained from a questionnaire exploring parents’ beliefs and expectations regarding overweight in children. The questionnaires were completed by parents following their child’s participation in the five-year preventive child health examination (PCHE).Parental agreement upon statements concerning beliefs and expectations regarding overweight in children was measured on a Likert scale. Differences in levels of agreement between parents of non-overweight children and parents of overweight children were analysed using Chi-squared test and Fisher’s exact test.ResultsParents of 879 children completed and returned questionnaires. Around three fourths of the parents agreed that overweight was a health problem. A majority of parents (93%) agreed that the GP should call attention to overweight in children and offer counselling on diet and exercise. Almost half of the parents expected a follow-up programme. Parents of overweight children seemed to agree less upon some of the proposed causes of overweight, e.g. inappropriate diet and lack of exercise. These parents also had stronger beliefs about overweight disappearing by itself as the child grows up.ConclusionsAccording to parental beliefs and expectations, general practice should have an important role to play in the management of child overweight. Moreover, our findings suggest that GPs should be aware of the particular beliefs that parents of overweight children may have regarding causes of overweight in their child.
Highlights
Care for overweight children in general practice involves collaboration with parents
A previous study showed that overweight was not addressed in one third of overweight children at the five-year preventive child health examination (PCHE) in Danish general practice, [7] weight assessment is an integral part of the PCHE programme [8]
In this study we aimed to quantify how widespread these particular beliefs are, and if they differ between parents of normal weight children (NOWC) and parents of overweight children (OWC)
Summary
Care for overweight children in general practice involves collaboration with parents. We aimed to analyse parental beliefs about the presumed causes and consequences of overweight in children and expectations towards the GP. The preventive child health examinations in Danish general practice have been proposed to be a good opportunity to provide prevention, identification of and care for overweight children [1] the participation rate being 83% at the five-year PCHE [2]. Caring for overweight children in general practice presupposes close collaboration between GPs and parents, and the GPs need to GPs’ barriers to managing child overweight may partly be unfounded. It seems requisite for GPs to possess knowledge about parents’ beliefs of the causes and consequences of overweight in children and their expectations towards the GP. The beliefs and expectations of parents participating with their child in a PCHE have not been examined
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