An educational intervention to increase awareness of weight bias in nursing students

Over one third of the adults and 12.5 million children in the United States are obese. The obesity rate continues to climb and along with that the rates of medical and psychological issues related to this disease. Weight bias based on negative stereotypes has been reported in healthcare professionals. This can affect the treatment and health seeking behavior of overweight patients. Recommendations from research include developing nursing curriculum to include information about weight bias and the specific needs of overweight patients. Research also suggests increasing awareness of one’s own bias, helps to decrease that bias. National initiatives by many health related organizations list obesity as a research priority. Obesity was recently recognized as a disease; guidelines were created to encourage the medical community to more actively treat overweight patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of an educational intervention about weight bias in healthcare professionals on the attitudes of undergraduate nursing students. A quasi-experimental study using pretest-posttest design with two groups of undergraduate nursing students was used and weight bias was evaluated utilizing the Fat Phobia Scale. Statistical analysis results revealed all pretest scores were low and the posttest scores increased indicating an increase in fat phobia. Although the between group analysis was not completed due to the small sample size of one group, an unplanned discussion took place with both groups after the posttests were collected. This discussion suggested that the educational intervention was beneficial in stimulating conversation among the students about their feelings and attitudes toward patients with obesity and possibly raising awareness of how their words and actions could impact the treatment and health seeking behavior patients with obesity.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Alabama Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Tanner, Tamara

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Atkinson, Becky M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gaskins, Susan W.
• March, Alice L.
• McKnight, Douglas
• Reddy, Sheethal

• Nursing
• Education

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US, English

Dc Identifier Other

u0015_0000001_0002656
Tanner_alatus_0004D_13019

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ir.ua.edu:123456789/3252