The development of a tool to monitor integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity in the Netherlands

This study presents a “Tool to monitor the local implementation of Integrated Care for Childhood Overweight and obesity” (TICCO). A three-step study was conducted in order to adapt and refine a generic integrated care questionnaire into a tool that suits the specific characteristics and context of integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. The three consecutive steps comprised the following: a focus group session that assessed the relevance and comprehensiveness of the original integrated care instrument; a pilot questionnaire for end users that evaluated the feasibility of the preliminary tool and a pilot questionnaire that determined the feasibility and potential limitations of this adapted tool. The adaptation process resulted in a 47-element digital tool for professionals actively involved in providing integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity. The results highlighted differences pertaining to how individual respondents judged each of the elements. These variations were found across both municipalities and different domains of integrated care. This article presents an adapted tool that seeks to both support local discussion in the interpretation of individual TICCO scores and identify potential areas for improvement in local integrated care for childhood overweight and obesity.
Source: Journal of Integrated Care - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: research