Background
Good practice characteristics of interventions and polices
Reporting and categorizing characteristics of interventions and policies
Aims
Methods
Materials and general procedures
Peer-reviewed documents: search strategy, inclusion, and exclusion criteria
Stakeholders’ documents (other than peer-reviewed): search strategy, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, and quality evaluation
Data extraction, coding, and synthesis
Good practice category | Systematic reviews, stakeholders’ documents, and position review papers endorsing respective characteristics |
---|---|
Good practice characteristics | |
The use of theory
| |
Theory applied in the development of intervention/policy | |
Participants
| |
Target audience well defined (including socio-demographic characteristics, risk factors, and susceptibility factors) | |
Needs of target group are identified (needs are assessed; they inform the content of intervention/policy; target group involved in policy/intervention development) | |
Family involvement (parents participating in programs for children/adolescents) | |
Target behavior
| |
Target behavior well defined, specified, and adjusted to target population (e.g., walking, not physical activity) | |
Multidimensional approach
| |
Multidimensionality of the approach (e.g., addressing individual/personal factors, social, and physical environment) | |
Physical environment accounted for (environmental structures, transportation, land use, etc.) | |
Content development and content management
| |
Individual contacts and its intensity specified (including intensity of individual contacts with practitioners delivering interventions) | |
Duration (number of sessions, their length, frequency) | |
Form of delivery (short messages, web based, self-guided with or without human support) | |
Number of components (distinguishable elements/strategies used to prompt healthy diet/physical activity) | |
General use of behavior change techniques: The use of any theory-based behavior change techniques | |
Clarity achieved (clear presentation of the content, aims, processes, relations between elements, objectives) | |
Tailoring (the content or materials adjusted to key characteristics of a target group) | |
Manuals/exact protocols exist (exact descriptions of content, components, and schedule of intervention/policy) | |
The use of specific behavior change techniques: Self-monitoring and self-management strategies | |
Practitioner and setting contexts
| |
Practitioners well defined (skills, training, and required characteristics specified) | |
Setting characteristics well defined |
Good practice category | Systematic reviews, stakeholders’ documents, and position reviews endorsing respective characteristics |
---|---|
Good practice characteristics | |
Costs and funding
| |
Costs in relation to obtained general health benefits (including population health changes, morbidity, quality of life, etc.) | |
Costs related to behavior change (e.g., costs of an hour of PA gained per person) | |
Total financial costs of interventions/policies (total budget per participant) | |
Outcomes
| |
Outcomes measured with valid, reliable, and sensitive tools | |
Effects specified as clinically significant (e.g., moving from sedentary to physically active) | |
Effects on public health-relevant secondary outcomes (proximal, e.g., weight loss, and distal, e.g., heart disease morbidity) | |
Negative consequences (or risks) evaluated | |
Measured outcomes include physiological risk factor indices (e.g., BMI, cholesterol) | |
Effects’ evaluation: time and effect size
| |
Efficiency established and reported (significant effects established in prior trials) | |
Sustainable effects (mid-term effects [>6 months] and long term effects [>12 months]) | |
Effect sizes (besides significant effects) | |
Reach
| |
Reach (the strategy is likely to involve a large percentage of the target population; reaching entire target population) | |
Inclusiveness: health, age, and gender contexts (individuals with low mobility or comorbidities participate; including people of different age within target group) | |
Cultural competence and social inclusion of interventions/policies (accounts for cultural/minority issues in: recruitment processes, content, setting; familiarity with health practices in respective social/cultural groups) | |
Participation and generalizability of evaluation
| |
Generalizability of effects evaluated (effects observed among participants with different characteristics; effects at population level) | |
Participation rates reported (across stages of evaluation) | |
Underlying processes and active components
| |
Active components identified | |
Ongoing monitoring and measurement of delivery and monitoring of materials |
Good practice category | Systematic reviews, stakeholders’ documents, and position reviews endorsing respective characteristics |
---|---|
Good practice characteristics | |
Participation processes
| |
Completion, attrition rates across stages (and their representativeness) | |
Resources and strategies for practitioners helping them to invite and follow-up participants | |
Strategies promoting long-term participation (maintenance) included | |
Training for practitioners
| |
Training for staff in aspects of implementation and facilitation of inter-sectorial collaboration | |
Use/integration of existing resources
| |
Resources for implementation specified | |
Implementation integrated into existing programs (available for target population) | |
Ongoing support from support from stakeholders secured | |
Feasibility
| |
Adoption by target staff, settings, or institutions (representativeness of staff, settings, institutions; exclusion of settings, staff, institutions; characteristics of those who adopted vs those who did not) | |
Feasible/acceptable for providers (fitting their skills; no external specialists needed for implementation), feasible and acceptable for stakeholders, and participants | |
Maintenance-sustainability
| |
Maintenance (effects maintained over time with institutional support; continuation within the realm of the institution) | |
Mutability (intervention/policy is in the realm of community/target group control) | |
Partnership for implementation
| |
Partnership between agencies/organizations to facilitate adoption and implementation (e.g., school, business, transport agencies; inter-sectorial collaboration between stakeholders) | |
Identification of those who are responsible for implementation; training, monitoring and feedback for those responsible for implementation | |
Implementation consistency and adaptation processes
| |
Implementation consistency and adaptations made during delivery assessed | |
Adherence to protocol and protocol fidelity monitored | |
Transferability
| |
Transferability (interventions/policies can be transferred to other populations, communities, settings, and cultures) | |
Context of transfer and transfer boundaries (including political, social, or economical conditions for transfer) |
No. | Best practice characteristic |
---|---|
Main intervention/policy characteristics
| |
1a | Target audience well defined |
2a | Target group needs identified |
3a | Family involvement* |
4b | Target behavior well defined and adjusted to target population |
5c | Multidimensionality of the approach (individual, social, environmental) |
6c | Physical environment accounted for |
7d | Theory applied in the development of the intervention/policy |
8e | Individual contacts and their intensity specified |
9e | Duration (number of sessions, their length, and frequency) |
10e | Forms of delivery |
11e | Number of components (distinguishable elements/strategies used to prompt healthy diet/physical activity) |
12e | The use of any theory-based behavior change techniques |
13e | Clarity achieved |
14e | Tailoring content and materials |
15e | Manuals/exact protocols exist |
16e | The use of specific behavior change techniques: self-monitoring and self-management |
17f | Practitioners well defined |
18f | Setting characteristics well defined |
Monitoring and evaluation
| |
19 g | Costs in relation to obtained general health benefits |
20 g | Costs related to behavior change |
21 g | Total financial costs of the interventions/policy |
22 h | Outcomes measured with valid, reliable, and sensitive tools |
23 h | Effects specified as clinically significant |
24 h | Effects on public health-relevant secondary outcomes |
25 h | Negative consequences (or risks) evaluated |
26 h | Measured outcomes include physiological risk factor indices |
27i | Efficiency established and reported |
28i | Sustainable effects |
29i | Effect sizes |
30j | Reach |
31j | Inclusiveness: health, age, and gender context |
32j | Cultural competence and social inclusion of the intervention/policy |
33 k | Generalizability of effects evaluated |
34 k | Participation rates reported |
35 l | Active components identified |
36 l | Ongoing monitoring and measurement of delivery; monitoring of materials |
Implementation
| |
37 m | Completion and attrition rates across stages |
38 m | Resources/strategies for staff helping them to invite and follow participants up |
39 m | Strategies promoting long-term participation (maintenance) included |
40n | Staff training in implementation and facilitation of inter-sectorial collaboration |
41o | Resources for implementation specified |
42o | Implementation integrated into existing programs |
43o | Ongoing support from stakeholders secured |
44p | Adoption by target staff, settings, or institutions |
45p | Feasible/acceptable for providers, stakeholders, and participants |
46q | Maintenance (the policy/intervention is maintained over time with institutional support) |
47q | Mutability (the intervention/policy is in the realm of community/target group) |
48r | Partnership between agencies/organizations to facilitate adoption/implementation |
49r | Identification of those responsible for implementation; training and feedback for implementers |
50s | Implementation consistency and adaptations made during delivery assessed |
51 t | Adherence to protocol/protocol fidelity monitored** |
32u | Transferability |
53u | Contexts of transfer and transfer boundaries |