Unconscious Weight Bias Among Nursing Students: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

There has been both an increase in obesity and anti-obesity bias in the United States. The Harvard Weight Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a reliable, valid test that can measure unconscious weight bias. First semester Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students were surveyed anonymously mid-semester and at the end of the semester after completing the Harvard Weight IAT. Sixty-nine out of 77 students completed pre- and post-surveys. Weight preference towards others was not shown to be related to the respondent’s own self-reported body mass index (BMI). The majority of respondents exhibited more weight-related bias on the IAT than they realized. The three qualitative themes that emerged included Awareness of Personal Beliefs and Stereotypes, Reminder to be Impartial, and Skepticism about the IAT. It is important for undergraduate nursing students to be aware of possible unconscious weight bias in order to provide high-quality care to patients.

Obesity bias and stigma, attitudes and beliefs among entry-level physiotherapy students in the Republic of Ireland: a cross sectional study

“…The level of weight bias observed in the present study is comparable to that reported in previous studies of students in other health disciplines, including medicine [18], nursing [22], dietetics [29] and psychology [27]. Of particular concern, in all of these studies is the percentage of students that expressed negative attitudes.…”

“…Furthermore, the majority of medical students have been shown to be unaware of their weight bias [18]. Similarly, studies exploring weight bias in nursing students report that although students may believe themselves to be free of weight bias, implicit weight bias does exist in a large percentage of them [22]. This bias may subconsciously affect treatment and patient experiences.…”

Exploring the weight bias of professionals working in the field of obesity with a mobile IAT: a pilot study

“…With respect to implicit weight bias, the results of those attending the conference (G1), who used our ResearchKit-based implementation of the IAT, were in line with those obtained by other authors for participants from the medical field, 15 and this is independent of whether web-based, 32 , 51 desktop, 52 paper and pencil-based 29 , 30 , 36 , 53 or unspecified 54 , 55 versions of the IAT were used. In addition, the results shown for G2 are also in line with the general population, 56 again, independent of the underlying platform.…”

Interventions for reducing weight bias in healthcare providers: An interprofessional systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Physicians and medical students, 6–8 nurses and nursing students, 2,9–12 dietitians and dietetic students, 13–15 kinesiology students, 16,17 physiotherapists, 18 and even providers specializing in eating disorders 19,20 and bariatrics 21 are documented to have displayed bias against patients with excess weight. In fact, a recently published systematic review and meta‐analysis quantified the extent to which various healthcare providers have implicit and explicit weight bias 22 .…”