Facilitators and Barriers of Children's Participation in Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Interventions: A Systematic Review

Objectives To conduct a systematic review of facilitators and barriers for children's participation in nutrition, physical activity, and obesity interventions from the perspective of parents, children, and researchers. Methods Studies were identified from 5 databases and restricted to children 2–18 years and to English. Studies without results on facilitator and barriers of recruitment were excluded. Results 423 records were identified; 97 duplicates and 269 unrelated records were initially excluded; 60 records were reviewed for full-text and subsequently 26 were excluded, for a total of 34 included studies. The top four barriers reported by children and parents were time constraints, nature of the intervention, limited understanding of clinical trial information or complexity of consent/trial info, and cost, while for researchers reported barriers were lack of transportation/lack of or childcare and time constraints. The top four common facilitators reported by children and parents were benefit others (altruism) and themselves, compensation/incentives, nature of the intervention, and quality of life, while for researchers these were physician recommendations/referrals, benefits to others and themselves, simple and clear materials describing the study and the inclusion criteria, and compensation/incentives. Conclusions These barriers and facilitators should be addressed in future studies to assist in the successful recruitment of children into nutrition, physical activity, and obesity interventions. Funding Sources Funding was supported by the National Institute of Health (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NICHD), grant number 1R01HD098589-01.

An empirical study of the internal factors influencing the application of compensation incentives in SMEs

Purpose Competitiveness is a multidimensional construct, related to a number of external and internal company factors. This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between the application of small- and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) compensation incentives as an index/element of human system development and competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach A unique primary data set drawn from the Global Competitiveness Project on SMEs’ competitiveness was analysed, using cross-sectional data of 784 firms. First, descriptive statistics were used to show the data set peculiarities. Second, a forward logistic regression was applied to show the effects on the application of compensation incentives. A 25.1% of explanatory power was found by targeting the application of compensation systems by 7 firm-level principal factors and 30 control variables. Findings The findings suggest that there is a higher chance of the application of compensation incentives in cases when the employees possess a more substantial tacit knowledge and formal and informal relationship networks. It is also positively impacted by the higher level of intra-company manifestation of knowledge. Research limitations/implications The research was conducted among SMEs from eight countries, based on a unique questionnaire designed for small enterprises. The respective countries are from Europe and Latin America, which serve as a reference category for Hungary. Also, there is a high level of 0 answers for the involved variables. The binary logistic regression methodology is suitable for filtering out some of these; nevertheless, the proportion of uncertain factors remains high as it is indicated by the explanatory power. Originality/value The majority of the literature is dealing with large companies in the topic of competitiveness, whereas in this data set, a deeper analysis was carried out among SMEs from eight countries, comparing their results to the Hungarian ones. The findings can be used as reference points for future studies, and the understanding of the HR cycle within SMEs.