Introduction: Standardised clinical data collection tools facilitate data sharing and the evaluation of clinical services across many sites. With the recent growth of secondary and tertiary paediatric obesity clinical services in New South Wales (NSW), there was a need for the development of a common questionnaire to assess the lifestyle habits and anthropometry of children and adolescents. Standardised clinical data collection will enable assessment of the impact of paediatric weight management services across NSW on patient outcomes and allow for comparison of services NSW-wide.
Methods: Clinicians and researchers in paediatric weight management services across NSW assisted in the development of the Healthy Lifestyle Questionnaire (HLQ). The HLQ was based on validated questions used in previous national data collection tools including the 2015 NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey and the 2011-2012 NSW Population Health Survey. The HLQ was then built on the online database application Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) with each site enabling specific REDCap functions to facilitate data collection at their clinic, including automated invitations for longitudinal data collection.
Findings: The final version of the standard HLQ collects demographic, family history and anthropometric data, and questions around daily consumption of fluids, breakfast, vegetables and fruit, weekly consumption of discretionary foods, physical activity, screen time and sleep habits and family meal consumption behaviours. This standard questionnaire is being used to collect data from parents of children and adolescents at enrolment and at 3- and 6-months into their care at seven paediatric weight management clinics across NSW using REDCap.
Conclusion: This standard tool will be used to collect data on the long-term lifestyle habits and anthropometry of children and adolescents enrolled in paediatric weight management services. We will use these data to assess and monitor paediatric weight management services, supporting continued service development and improvement.