Virtual Role-Plays to Reduce the Occurrence of Childhood Obesity

描述（由申请人提供）：肥胖在美国处于历史高水平，并且是重要的健康问题（Flegal等人，2010年）。针对儿童的干预措施是一个高度优先事项，因为儿童承受着超重和肥胖的最大终身健康风险。（Ogden等人，2007; Franks等人，2010年）。初级保健环境中的卫生专业人员对家庭生活具有影响力。即使是简短的建议传递良好可以有一个有意义的影响，然而，卫生保健提供者表示，缺乏功效和技能，影响，病人的动机，和教育材料（Jelalian等人，2003; Story等人，2002年; Shaanxi等人，2011）使他们在实践中无法常规地解决肥胖预防和治疗问题。针对这一差距，SIMmersion与Fulkerson，舍伍德和弗莱明博士一起，建议开发，评估和传播一个基于计算机的培训系统，角色扮演模拟，以培训医疗保健提供者有效地与父母和儿童进行讨论，以提供干预并减少儿童肥胖症进展的可能性。 根据有效的模拟开发（Issenberg等人，2005年）和成人学习理论，拟议的系统将包括互动教育材料，以促进知识的获取，三个虚拟角色扮演与模拟人物，以促进技能的获取，一个屏幕上的教练和全面的行动后审查，以提供有影响力的反馈。这三个角色扮演练习课程将允许医疗保健提供者练习（1）分享关注点 与父母讨论孩子的体重，（2）在关于体重的初步讨论后一个月，与超重儿童的父母进行随访，（3）让孩子参与 关于健康选择的对话为了评估该计划在改变医疗保健提供者与父母和儿童交谈技能方面的有效性，研究小组建议进行一项随机对照试验。来自明尼苏达州双城市大都会区的100名医疗保健提供者将被随机分配到等待名单对照组（N=50）或将接受培训计划的干预组（N=50）。所有参与者将在基线和干预后完成现场标准化患者访谈。因此，研究的主要成果是通过与训练有素的演员进行角色扮演来衡量参与者技能水平的提高。该培训产品的开发和评估可以为医疗专业人员提供将肥胖治疗和预防纳入常规实践所需的培训。为此，该团队将把商业化工作的重点放在提高医学院、医院和私人诊所以及医疗保健组织的产品意识上。我们预计，培训系统将更好地准备卫生保健提供者，以促进超重和肥胖青年及其家庭的生活方式的改变。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Obesity in the United States is at historically high levels and is an important health problem (Flegal et al., 2010). Interventions targeting children are a high priority because children bear the greatest lifetime health risk from overweight and obesity. (Ogden et al., 2007; Franks et al., 2010). Health professionals in primary care settings are influential in the lives of families. Even brief advice delivered well can have a meaningful impact, and yet, health care providers indicate that lack of efficacy and skill, impact, patient motivation, and educational materials (Jelalian et al., 2003; Story et al., 2002; Shaikh et al., 2011) keep them from routinely addressing obesity prevention and treatment in their practices. To target this gap, SIMmersion, together with Drs. Fulkerson, Sherwood, and Fleming, proposes to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a computer-based training system with role-play simulations to train health care providers to effectively conduct discussions with parents and children to provide intervention for and reduce the likelihood of progression to childhood obesity. In accordance with effective simulation development (Issenberg et al., 2005) and adult learning theory, the proposed system will include interactive educational materials to facilitate knowledge acquisition, three virtual role-plays with simulated characters to facilitate skill acquisition, an an on-screen coach and comprehensive after-action review to provide impactful feedback. The three role-play practice sessions will allow health care providers to practice (1) sharing concerns about a child's weight with a parent, (2) conducting a follow-up visit with the parent of an overweight child a month after the initial discussion regarding weight, and (3) involving the child in a conversation about healthy choices. To evaluate the program's efficacy to change health care providers' skills in talking with parents and children, the research team proposes to conduct a randomized controlled trial. One-hundred health care providers from the Twin Cities Minnesota Metropolitan area will be randomly assigned to a wait-list control group (N=50) or the intervention group that will receive access to the training program (N=50). All participants will complete live standardized patient interviews at baseline and post- intervention. Thus, primary outcomes of the study are increases in participant skill levels measured via performance in role plays with trained actors. The development and evaluation of this training product could provide medical professionals the training they need to implement obesity treatment and prevention into routine practice. To that end, the team will focus commercialization efforts on increasing product awareness to medical schools, hospitals and private practices, and healthcare organizations. We anticipate that the training system will better prepare health care providers to promote lifestyle change among overweight and obese youth and their families.