Maternal overweight and obesity are major public health concerns which can have a significant impact on the health of both the woman and her baby. The last twenty years have seen a significant increase in the prevalence of maternal obesity within the UK, with approximately one in five pregnant women being classified as obese. To tackle maternal obesity and reduce complications, guidelines and antenatal weight management programmes have been implemented. In order to inform the planning and development of future effective programmes which may reduce/minimise negative outcomes for the woman and her baby, it is important that programmes are compared with one another. The aim of this study was to advance understanding of the core elements required in the planning, implementation and evaluation processes to maximise the effectiveness of future antenatal weight management programmes. To achieve this, a Comparative Effectiveness Review of antenatal weight management programmes was conducted; a literature review to inform the development of a conceptual framework was undertaken and a mixed-methods study carried out. The main contribution of this study was a current picture of how UK antenatal weight management programmes within maternity services and local councils were planned, implemented and evaluated. This study identified that maternity services were not meeting guidelines for the provision of an antenatal weight management programmes as one-third did not offer a programme (n=25). For those maternity services and local councils that implemented a programme (n=77), only 37.9% adhered to the recommended inclusion threshold (BMI £30 kg/m2). A significant barrier to planning, implementing and evaluating these programmes was the lack of dedicated resources. Finally, the collected data were used to test and subsequently amend the derived conceptual framework which incorporated Realistic Evaluation. This framework and study findings may inform the future effective planning, implementation and evaluation of complex health promotion programmes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:716362 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | MacAulay, Sarah |
| Publisher | Ulster University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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