Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Childhood obesity is an urgent public health issue. Roughly one-quarter of Canadian children are overweight, putting them at risk for chronic diseases. For overweight and obese children, pediatric weight management programs offer specialized health care services with an emphasis on healthy lifestyle behaviour change. Despite research efforts which have focused on strengthening the effectiveness of pediatric weight management programs, many children and their families' end care early. This phenomenon can reduce families' benefits from the program, discourage them from seeking future treatment, and can hinder efficient health service delivery. To understand why families drop out in pediatric weight management, we searched literature published up to January 2014 in five electronic databases. Papers were included if they were in English, included children and/or adolescents, had a focus on pediatric weight management, provided attrition data, and discussed why families ended care prematurely. A total of 23 papers met the inclusion criteria. Across the identified papers, levels of early dropout varied (4 - 83%). Although there were few consistent predictors or reasons as to why families' terminated care early, some studies highlighted that older girls and boys were more likely to discontinue care. Children's sex and weight status did not predict dropout. This review showed that dropout in pediatric weight management is common. There is value in developing strategies to reduce the risk of dropout and optimize services for those children and families who are more likely to discontinue care.