A randomised controlled trial of an active telephone-based recruitment strategy to increase childcare-service staff attendance at a physical activity and nutrition training workshop

Issue addressed: Centre-based childcare services represent a promising setting to target the prevention of excessive weight gain in preschool-aged children. Staff training is a key component of multi-strategy interventions to improve implementation of effective physical activity and nutrition promoting practices for obesity prevention in childcare services. This randomised controlled trial aimed to examine whether an active telephone-based strategy to invite childcare-service staff to attend a training workshop was effective in increasing the proportion of services with staff attending training, compared with a passive strategy. Methods: Services were randomised to an active telephone-based or a passive-recruitment strategy. Those in the active arm received an email invitation and one to three follow-up phone calls, whereas services in the passive arm were informed of the availability of training only via newsletters. The proportion of services with staff attending the training workshop was compared between the two arms. Results: One hundred and twenty-eight services were included in this study. A significantly larger proportion (52%) of services in the active arm compared with those in the passive-strategy arm (3.1%) attended training (d.f. = 1, chi(2) = 34.3; P < 0.001). Conclusions: An active, telephone-based recruitment strategy significantly increased the proportion of childcare services with staff attending training. Further strategies to improve staff attendance at training need to be identified and implemented. So what? Active-recruitment strategies including follow-up telephone calls should be utilised to invite staff to participate in training, in order to maximise the use of training as an implementation strategy for obesity prevention in childcare services.