OBJECTIVES:

While Obesity epidemic exerts a vast economic burden with its high medical care cost and comorbidity attribute, managing the growth of obesity among millions of children became a major challenge for the nation’s healthcare. Evidence shows that behavioral therapies are one of the best treatment options for pediatric obesity. American Psychological Association Clinical practice guideline for childhood obesity (March 2018) strongly recommends Family based multicomponent intervention to treat pediatric obesity. This review aims to examine the cost-effective analysis of Family based behavioral intervention for Pediatric Obesity.

METHODS:

Search was done in PubMed database followed by a comprehensive search of the grey literature published between 2000 and 2022. All publicly available articles with search terms “Family based treatment”, “Obesity /Overweight”, “Children” and “cost effectiveness” were identified. Three stage screening process (Title screening, Abstract Screening, Full text screening) has been performed. In the end 10 papers were selected for critical appraisal.

RESULTS:

Most of the studies performed a comprehensive economic evaluation by comparing both cost and effects between Family based treatment (FBT)t and comparator. Each study compared FBT with different forms of comparator such as treating child and parent individually, Mixed plus group treatment, usual care, and no intervention. Few studies identified FBT as not a cost-effective option, but majority of the included studies suggest that Family based behavioral treatment (group) is more cost effective than treating parent and child separately.

CONCLUSIONS:

Cost effectiveness of FBT depends on the population, region/country and comparators included in the study. In general, the study observes FBT as a cost-effective intervention.