You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 4, Issue 7
  • The effect of a behaviour change intervention on the diets and physical activity levels of women attending Sure Start Children’s Centres: results from a complex public health intervention

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Public health
Research
The effect of a behaviour change intervention on the diets and physical activity levels of women attending Sure Start Children’s Centres: results from a complex public health intervention
  1. Janis Baird1,
  2. Megan Jarman1,2,
  3. Wendy Lawrence1,2,
  4. Christina Black1,
  5. Jenny Davies3,
  6. Tannaze Tinati1,
  7. Rufia Begum1,2,
  8. Andrew Mortimore3,
  9. Sian Robinson1,
  10. Barrie Margetts4,
  11. Cyrus Cooper1,2,
  12. Mary Barker1,
  13. Hazel Inskip1
  1. 1MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
  2. 2NIHR Nutrition Biomedical Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
  3. 3Public Health Team, NHS Southampton City, Civic Centre, Southampton, UK
  4. 4Primary Care and Population Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Janis Baird; jb{at}mrc.soton.ac.uk

Abstract

Objectives The UK government's response to the obesity epidemic calls for action in communities to improve people's health behaviour. This study evaluated the effects of a community intervention on dietary quality and levels of physical activity of women from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Design Non-randomised controlled evaluation of a complex public health intervention.

Participants 527 women attending Sure Start Children's Centres (SSCC) in Southampton (intervention) and 495 women attending SSCCs in Gosport and Havant (control).

Intervention Training SSCC staff in behaviour change skills that would empower women to change their health behaviours.

Outcomes Main outcomes dietary quality and physical activity. Intermediate outcomes self-efficacy and sense of control.

Results 1-year post-training, intervention staff used skills to support behaviour change significantly more than control staff. There were statistically significant reductions of 0.1 SD in the dietary quality of all women between baseline and follow-up and reductions in self-efficacy and sense of control. The decline in self-efficacy and control was significantly smaller in women in the intervention group than in women in the control group (adjusted differences in self-efficacy and control, respectively, 0.26 (95% CI 0.001 to 0.50) and 0.35 (0.05 to 0.65)). A lower decline in control was associated with higher levels of exposure in women in the intervention group. There was a statistically significant improvement in physical activity in the intervention group, with 22.9% of women reporting the highest level of physical activity compared with 12.4% at baseline, and a smaller improvement in the control group. The difference in change in physical activity level between the groups was not statistically significant (adjusted difference 1.02 (0.74 to 1.41)).

Conclusions While the intervention did not improve women's diets and physical activity levels, it had a protective effect on intermediate factors—control and self-efficacy—suggesting that a more prolonged exposure to the intervention might improve health behaviour. Further evaluation in a more controlled setting is justified.

  • complex public health intervention
  • behavour change
  • diet
  • physical activity
  • self efficacy
  • sense of control

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005290

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text