Investigators: Poston,L.* Baker,P. Sanders,T.Shennan,A. Briley,A. Godfrey,K. McDonald,M. Sandall,J. Wardle,J. Robson,S. Bell,R. Godfrey,C.
Project Funding: National Institute For Health Research Programme Grant for Applied Research
Website: http://www.medscinet.net/upbeat/
Researcher: Claire Hunt 

This programme evaluates the implementation of an individualised dietary and physical activity behavioural intervention to improve pregnancy outcome in obese women, thereby alleviating the burden of ill-health and reducing NHS costs. This programme will develop and evaluate a complex behavioural intervention to improve pregnancy outcome, focusing on physical activity, dietary advice and group support. This will be conducted in accordance with the MRC framework for development and evaluation of RCTs for complex interventions to improve health. The main output is a complex behavioural intervention of dietary advice, physical activity and individual support to improve pregnancy outcome in obese women, rapidly translatable to NHS practice.We are leading a nested process evaluation to contribute to the interpretation of results by identifying how the intervention works, what the active ingredients are, and the behavioural responses . Our study will be guided by Normalisation Process Theory (NPT). This is an explanatory framework deriving from sociological theory that focuses on the identification of a range of factors that influence the normalization, or routine embedding, of a complex intervention.