Executive summary
systematic reviews, none exactly matched the topic, intervention and population
focus of this scoping review.
The scope of the interventions reported in the outcome evaluations ranged from a
fairly narrow focus on single issues (such as physical activity or asthma) to more
broad-ranging assessments of health behaviours and/or emotional health and
wellbeing. Many of the interventions involved nurses who undertook some form of
assessment and/or provided follow-up guidance and advice. Other providers were
family doctors and specialists, such as school counsellors or dentists. The
location of the interventions was fairly evenly split between schools and health-
care settings. Where the information was available, it appeared that most young
people were offered tailored advice or individual health plans following their health
check. Most of the studies targeted young people in general, although a small
number focused on young people from disadvantaged groups or reported their
results stratified by age, gender or socio-economic group. There was limited
evidence available from the UK, as only four outcome studies evaluated
interventions implemented in this country.
The kinds of interventions evaluated varied in terms of how closely they matched
the proposed life check. Some studies evaluated interventions in which young
people were invited to take part in ‘one-off’ assessments to assess their physical
health, health behaviours and/or emotional health and wellbeing. These took
place in schools or in health-care settings, usually in primary care. Other studies
evaluated periodic health check-ups offered to all children in a particular school,
area or country. It was not always clear what these periodic health checks
covered. In some studies, the health check was used as an opportunity to screen
for more specific health problems or behaviours, such as diabetes or oral health
behaviour; while, in other studies, the health check was used as an opportunity to
discuss health behaviours, lifestyle and/or emotional health more generally. A
variation on this theme was a check-up for young people before they participated
in school sports. Again, in some of these studies, the ‘pre-participation’ exam was
used to screen for specific problems, such as asthma; in others, it was used as an
opportunity for health-promoting activities. Despite searching the transitions
literature, we only identified one study which offered a life-check style intervention
to help young people negotiate the transition between primary and secondary
school.
Conclusion
The results of this scoping review suggest a small, but nonetheless substantive,
body of research evidence relevant to the life-check proposal for young people.
Although searches were systematic and comprehensive, they were not
exhaustive, so the results of this scoping review may represent an underestimate
of the total body of relevant literature. On the other hand, because the review is
based on titles and abstracts of study reports only, we may have deemed some
studies as relevant which may on inspection of the full report turn out to be
irrelevant. The scoping review has highlighted that the available research
evidence can address questions about the effectiveness, acceptability and uptake
of the life check. It was not in the remit of this review to assess the quality of this
evidence and synthesise the findings. A full systematic review would be required
for this task. The commissioning of such a review would need to consider
supplementary searching methods and the relevance to the life-check proposal of
the different types of interventions identified in this scoping exercise. Since we
found studies evaluating life check style interventions in a variety of settings and
A scoping review of the evidence relevant to life checks for young people aged 9 to 14 years