Extrait

Background and study aims Being physically active is good for children’s health. Few adolescent girls are active enough to get these health benefits and teenage girls face lots of barriers to being physically active. Research shows that most school-based programs to increase adolescents' physical activity do not work, but few high quality studies have been tried in the UK. As children move into adolescence, friends’ opinions and activity levels become influential on their beliefs about, and levels of, physical activity. If we can harness the power of peer-influences to have a positive impact on adolescent girls’ activity, then this could be a new way to inspire girls to be active. We know that peer-led anti-smoking projects can reduce teen smoking rates. In these projects, adolescents nominate peers (who they see as influential and they respect) to be ‘peer-supporters’. These peer supporters then attend out-of-school training about smoking and return to school for 10 weeks and informally encourage their peers not to smoke. In this study we want to adapt this idea to develop a project to train girls to influence their friends’ physical activity. Before conducting large studies it is important to carefully craft the programme by including girls in its development. This helps to test whether girls find it acceptable and whether they engage well enough in our research to make a larger study worthwhile. Who can participate? Year 8 girls in participating schools. What does the study involve? We will develop and test whether it is possible to run a school-based peer-led physical activity project for 12-13 year old girls. We will develop the project by speaking with adolescent girls about how they would design the training and the wording they use. The project will follow similar processes to the smoking cessation study. Peer supporters will be trained by experts in physical activity and youth work. We will practice the project in one school to find any problems and then do a larger test of the project in six schools. Four schools will be chosen at random to run the peer-training project and two schools will be “comparison schools” and will not do the peer-training. Year 8 girls in all six schools will be asked to provide information at three times: before the schools are chosen to be project or comparison schools, straight after the 10-week project, and 1 year after the first measurements. We are mainly interested in finding out whether we can recruit girls into the project and whether the data collection, peer-nomination and training, and 10-week informal discussion periods are successful. We will measure the girls’ activity levels using activity monitors and their motivation for being active using questionnaires. We will do interviews and group discussions with peer-supporters, pupils, parents, and trainers to find out what was successful and what could be changed in future. What are the possible benefits and risks of participating? The benefits of participation for peer-supporters include an increased awareness of physical activity and the health benefits of being more active, improved teamwork, communication, empathy and problem solving skills, and a potential increase in physical activity levels due to the ideas and knowledge gained during the training and intervention period. The benefits of participation for Year 8 girls who are not peer-supporters include being encouraged to be more active from their peers, greater exposure to new ideas about how to incorporate physical activity into their day-to-day life, and the potential health benefits this holds. Schools benefit by having a number of their pupils attending a training course which may increase their skills, confidence and leadership abilities. Additionally, physical activity levels throughout the Year 8 female cohort may be increased. The potential risks to participants are minimal. Peer-supporters may face instances of bullying/teasing, but we will ensure reporting procedures are in place to minimise such instances and effectively deal with any that do arise. Non-peer-supporters may feel pressured to be active, but the training that peer-supporters receives will cover empathy and effective communication. Where is the study run from? University of Bristol (UK) When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for? April 2015 to July 2017 Who is funding the study? National Institute for Health Research (Public Health Research Programme) (UK) Who is the main contact? Dr Mark Edwards [email protected]

Critère d'inclusion

• Physical activity

Liens

• isrctn
• ictrp