American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine

Abstract: Purpose. To understand and gain insight into improving com-munication about weight manage-ment between patients and physicians and answer the question, “How should physicians communicate with obese patients about weight management?” Design. Three patient focus groups of 5 participants each and 2 physician focus groups of 6 participants each, segregated by gender, during July and August 2004. Participants. Patients with a body mass index of ≥ 30, English speaking, aged 25 to 75 years. Physicians trained in internal medi-cine or family medicine from a large multispecialty group. Methods. Focus group discussions were transcribed ver-batim, a coding scheme developed, and 4 independent reviewers coded each transcript. Consensus among review-ers was obtained. Results. Patients perceive that physicians do not initi-ate weight discussions, whereas physi-cians feel that they initiate these con-versations regularly. Patients expressed desire for individualized information and advice about weight loss, yet phy-sicians used 1 or 2 messages with all their patients and felt the individu-alized plans that some patients want are outside the role of the physician. Conclusion. Our results indicate that a communication gap does exist between patients and physicians about weight management. Individualized weight management advice by physicians for patients may reduce this gap