Co-Developed 5AsT Toolkit Enhanced Practical Obesity Management Support in Primary Care

Dr. Saurabh Arora, Consultant Endocrinologist, Fortis Hospital, Mal Road, Ludhiana.

The 5As Team (5AsT) study developed a toolkit to help address gaps in obesity prevention and management in primary care.

Despite the availability of obesity management guidelines, many primary care providers still face challenges in delivering effective obesity care. To help bridge this gap, researchers developed the 5AsT Toolkit, a collection of practical resources based on the 5As framework for obesity management.

The toolkit was created through close collaboration between researchers and healthcare professionals, including nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians, and mental health workers. Throughout the project, providers shared their experiences and feedback, allowing the tools to be refined to better meet the needs of everyday clinical practice.

In total, 12 tools were developed and evaluated. Healthcare providers rated all of them as either highly useful or moderately useful for supporting obesity management in primary care.

The development process highlighted several important needs. Providers wanted flexible tools that could be adapted to different patients, resources that encouraged collaboration among healthcare team members, and materials that helped patients develop realistic expectations about weight loss. They also emphasized the importance of shared decision-making tools to support goal setting and help patients manage setbacks during their weight-management journey.

Overall, the 5AsT Toolkit provided practical resources that helped healthcare teams apply the 5As obesity management approach more effectively in routine primary care practice.

(Reference: Osunlana, A. M., Asselin, J., Anderson, R., Ogunleye, A. A., Cave, A., & Sharma, A. M. (2015). 5As Team obesity intervention in primary care: Development and evaluation of shared decision‐making weight management tools. Clinical Obesity, 5(4), 219. https://doi.org/10.1111/cob.12105 )