4. Results
4.3 Types of evidence
We identified studies relevant to all the questions posed in this scoping review
about effectiveness, acceptability and uptake. Some studies were relevant to
more than one question. As mentioned earlier, we also identified an additional
group of studies focused on the development and evaluation of screening tools
which could be used in a life check. In this section, we describe in more detail the
sorts of studies which are relevant to each of the questions listed above and the
studies on screening tools. In the final part of this section, we describe the five
systematic reviews we identified in more detail.
4.3.1 Studies testing effectiveness in school settings
We found 23 studies which could potentially provide evidence about the
effectiveness of life checks within a school setting. Overall, this was a
heterogeneous set of reports in terms of study design, health focus, and life-check
style components. However, there were four distinct groupings of studies as
follows.
The first group of studies were all focused on a physical examination offered to
young people in the USA before they took part in school sports programmes.
These examinations were used as an opportunity for health-promotion activities,
such as alcohol misuse prevention (Werch et al., 2000; Werch et al., 2003), or as
an opportunity to screen for undiagnosed asthma (Hammerman et al., 2002) or
health problems which have been associated with female athletes (e.g.
disordered eating, osteoporosis) (De La Torre and Snell, 2005). Briner and Farr
(1995) considered the value of the pre-sports participation physical examination
for different age groups.
The second group of studies involved disease-specific screening and assessment
programmes - often routinely offered to all children and young people within
particular schools - followed by some form of feedback, advice, support or
referral. The studies covered diabetes screening for young people in the USA
(Whitaker et al., 2004); testing and feedback of young people’s cholesterol levels
in the USA (Nader et al., 1997); assessing behaviours which might put young
people in the USA at risk of HIV/STDs (Paperny, 1997); screening for behaviours
relevant to oral health among young people in Finland (Kallio et al., 1997) and the
USA (Nowjack et al., 1995); vision screening for young people in the UK (Holroyd
and Hall, 1997) and the USA (Yawn, 1998); and scoliosis screening for young
people in the Netherlands (Pruijs et al., 1996).
The third group of studies involved screening too, but these included more
general assessments of health. All but two of the studies in this group were from
the USA. Presswood (2005) reported the results of an evaluation of a ‘health
report card’ which was used by school nurses to feed back screening information
to young people about their health in relation to obesity. Bracken et al. (1998),
Harrison et al. (2003) and Redding et al. (1999) all offered children and young
people a computerised health review. Harrison et al. (2003) further reported that
the results of the health review formed the basis for the development of health
plans in discussion with school-based clinic personnel. Fisher (1999) provided a
synopsis of US practice guidelines for use in physicians’ offices for adolescent
health assessment. Fujii et al. (2004) examined the role of lifestyle screening for
increasing interest in health among young people in Japan, and Lezin and Thouin
(2000) considered the effectiveness of computerised assessments for health
A scoping review of the evidence relevant to life checks for young people aged 9 to 14 years
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