Process evaluation of the CEW clinic at Birmingham Children's Hospital
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding the implementation of the Complications from Excess Weight service at Birmingham Children's Hospital
IRAS ID
362555
Contact name
Jacqueline Blissett
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aston University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 31 days
Research summary
This study is a process evaluation of the Complications from Excess Weight service (CEW) at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH). The CEW clinic is a holistic multi-disciplinary weight management intervention for children with complications from excess weight. As the CEW clinics are in their pilot stage with potential to be further rolled out across the country, it is important to ensure these clinics are optimised to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people. Understanding what components of the intervention at the clinic are effective and for whom the intervention is effective is necessary to be able to make improvements and sustain success. One way to gain this understanding is to conduct a process evaluation (Linnan & Steckler, 2002).
Process evaluation helps us to understand what works and what does not work within any specific intervention, so we can continue to improve them. Therefore we need to conduct a process evaluation of the CEW intervention. However, in childhood obesity, many of the process evaluations explore interventions that focus on prevention of childhood obesity (e.g. Ekambareshwar et al., 2021), rather than interventions that manage it. As part of this process evaluation, this study will employ a qualitative approach to supplement an existing retrospective before and after quantitative study of the service. This qualitative approach aims to provide deeper understanding of the mechanisms of action and how context affects implementation of the intervention. Semi-structured interviews will take place with primary caregivers to understand their experience of bringing their child to the service. Children will also take part in a separate semi-structured interview to explore their thoughts and experiences about the service. Staff perspectives of delivering the service will also be explored via focus groups.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
26/NS/0022
Date of REC Opinion
14 Apr 2026
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion