Tackling obesity: the challenge of obesity management for practice nurses in primary care

Background. Nurses in primary care, who see a large proportion of the population, are well placed to discuss weight with patients and offer management advice. Interventions to promote weight loss have shown that there are effective ways of making small changes for patients. Objectives. To use qualitative semi-structured interviews to explore how practice nurses man-age obesity within primary care and to identify good practice and explore barriers to achieving effective management. Methods. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with practice nurses within two local health board areas in South Wales. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and ana-lysed qualitatively using a thematic approach. Results. Nurses described two roles. One role was providing obesity management to patients who had co-morbid conditions and were seen regularly in chronic disease clinics. All nurses per-ceived that these patients needed their weight addressing routinely. The other role was to broach the subject with overweight but healthy patients. Nurses were of divided opinion whether to address obesity with these patients and what primary care had to offer. Weight managemen