Reducing Weight Bias Among Nursing Students

Background: Patients with obesity confront weight-based bias when navigating the healthcare system. Addressing this topic during the academic formation of future health care providers can effectively diminish negative stereotypes attributed to overweight individuals. Purpose: The purpose of this project was to reduce weight-based bias among nursing students through a structured curriculum designed to highlight the negative impact of stigma on patients, an understanding of the complex causes of obesity and model a more sensitive approach for nurse-patient interaction. Methods: Undergraduate nursing students in their junior year inpatient clinical rotation were given two standardized self-surveys, Attitudes Toward Obese Persons Scale (ATOP) and the Anti-fat Attitudes (AFA) were employed to measure nursing students’ beliefs regarding obesity pre- and post-intervention. The educational intervention was delivered to 15 students and consisted of informational videos, lectures and a theatrical production focused on the etiology of obesity and the impact of the provider’s attitudes. Results: The results revealed that while both instruments showed a trend towards improvement only the AFA yielded a statistically significant change reflecting decreased bias. Results on AFA indicated that each of the 5-items had a significant decrease in the mean from pre- to post-intervention (p\u3c0.05). Conclusion: Consistent with prior research the results demonstrated that introducing educational material on weight-based bias in nursing curriculum may serve to help diminish bias towards patients with overweight and obesity