Children and Teens in Charge of Their Health

The World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity (PA) and Health Promotion highlights that PA and dietary habits are central to disease prevention and lifelong health. Canadian children have increased health risks as their activity levels are drastically lower than recommendations and ~26% are classified as overweight or obese. The situation is even more critical for children with disabilities; 4.2% of Canadian children have disabilities and this number is rising. Due to complex and intersecting factors, children with physical disabilities (CWPD) are more sedentary, have lower PA rates and poorer quality diets than their non-disabled peers. Annual health care costs of obesity related to disability are estimated at $44 billion in the US, supporting the need to start health promotion activities early in life. Despite the serious proximal and distal consequences of this health profile, the investigators lack robust evidence on effective strategies to foster and sustain health habits for CWPD.

A new intervention paradigm that produces sustainable results without undue burden (on families or services) is therefore urgently required to address the health promotion needs of CWPD. The investigators propose that a strengths-based coaching approach may meet all of these requirements. Solution-Focused Coaching in Pediatric Rehabilitation (SFC-Peds) has been recommended as a coaching model for children with disabilities, for its strong theoretical basis and ability to be customized to children and families' resources, environmental settings, child age and developmental stage. Taking a strengths-based approach (such as SFC-Peds) is a departure from usual rehabilitation research and practice, which has largely been problem-focused (i.e. what a child can't do). A strengths-based approach can result in hope, motivation and action.

Given that the investigators will be the first to use SFC-Peds to promote healthy habits with CWPD, a feasibility and acceptability study is essential. Evidence of feasibility is a critical prerequisite for a RCT, especially for complex interventions that have multiple interacting components and/or target multiple behaviours (such as SFC-Peds). Feasibility studies rigorously examine the processes (e.g. recruitment and retention), resources (e.g. personnel, time required to complete measures), management (e.g. coordination of research personnel, quality of data entry) and science (e.g. appropriate methodology and outcomes) of the intended RCT. It is also critical to evaluate the acceptability of interventions for the target population (e.g. satisfaction with duration, intensity, level of interest, perceived impact), as well as those allocated to the control arm (e.g. acceptability of not receiving coaching, perceived burden of assessments). Examining all of these issues before the efficacy trial begins increases the likelihood of success. Feasibility studies such as the one the investigators are proposing help ensure that resources are invested in efficacy trials likely to generate clinically meaningful results and therefore have maximum impact on health care knowledge and outcomes.

Primary objective: To evaluate the feasibility (study design, methods, processes) and acceptability (family/child/clinician satisfaction, perceived usefulness) of conducting a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a novel, brief, coaching intervention, solution-focused coaching in pediatric rehabilitation (SFC-Peds) for improving and sustaining physical activity (PA) and dietary habits in children with physical disabilities (CWPD).

Secondary objective: To determine the responsiveness of selected outcome measures to SFC-Peds coaching over 12 months.

Principal research question: "Is an efficacy trial to evaluate a 6 month SFC-Peds intervention to improve PA and dietary habits feasible to implement and acceptable to CWPD and families?"

Physical, environmental and psychosocial restrictions mean that children with physical disabilities (CWPD) are adopting worrying physical activity (PA) and dietary habits. Despite this, the investigators currently have limited evidence to inform interventions that may enhance lifelong health in CWPD. The investigators suggest that a paradigm shift is needed, one that moves beyond traditional prescriptive programs to a strengths-based approach where intervention strategies enable new health habits to be integrated seamlessly into children and families' everyday lifestyles for long-term sustainability.

Research such as our proposed study will ensure that this potentially transformative approach is rigorously examined and used in an evidence-based manner. As little is known about effective and acceptable behaviour change interventions for CWPD, this study's findings will make significant contributions to the field: i) Greater understanding of ecologically valid interventions that have the potential to enhance the long term health of CWPD; ii) Insight into how 2 different rehabilitation populations respond to SFC-Peds; and iii) Data on the responsiveness of outcome measures to a SFC-Peds intervention. These insights will enable us to design acceptable, feasible and rigorous interventions that will result in robust data for informing both research and clinical practice.