Changing internal medicine residents’ attitudes towards managing people with obesity using an interactive educational session with lecture and embedded real-life patients’ experiences

BACKGROUND: Weight bias and discrimination towards individuals with obesity among healthcare professionals are associated with inferior patient care and worse health and healthcare outcomes. Our aim was to assess/measure the effect of an innovative interactive educational session on attitudes toward perceived causes of obesity and treating individuals with obesity among internal medicine residents. METHODS: This pre-post-intervention study was conducted among 30 internal medicine residents. The session included a a didactic lecture addressing the etiology, pathophysiology and management of obesity embedded with shared real-life patient experiences. Validated surveys were offered pre- and post-session: Perceived Causes of Obesity (categorized into physiological, behavioral and environmental domains) and Attitudes about Treating Patients with Obesity (negative and positive attitudes domains). A generalized estimating equations time-based model was used. RESULTS: Median age of participants was 29 years old, 53.3% females, and over half (56.7%) Caucasians. The effect of session was significant in the physiological causes domain (3.59 ± 0.75-3.97 ± 0.80; p = 0.002), suggesting significantly greater belief that obesity is caused by physiological characteristics. Our educational session also resulted in statistically significant improvement in negative attitudes about treating patients with obesity (2.43 ± 0.60-2.28 ± 0.54; p = 0.015). CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated significant positive impact of combining a traditional didactic lecture approach with embedded real-life patient experiences on better understanding of factors contributing to obesity and improving their attitudes towards managing this complex category of patients. Our findings merit further research on optimal strategy, context, duration, and evaluation of educational interventions that effectively and efficiently reduce weight bias among our future healthcare workforce.