How Significant Is the Weight of Nurses' Prejudice? Attitudes and Behaviors of These Professionals Toward Patients with Obesity: A Review

The prevalence of people with obesity is increasing worldwide, facing challenges in terms of discrimination and prejudice across all settings, including health care. The objective of this review is to compare and synthesize recent scientific literature regarding nurses' behaviors and attitudes toward patients with obesity. A systematic methodology was employed, conducting a literature search of studies published in the past five years in the bibliographic resources Academic Search Complete, CINAHL Complete, Web of Science, and Scopus; using specific terms combined with the Boolean operators AND and OR. The focus was placed on studies involving nurses and/or nursing students. Initially, the search yielded 166 articles, of which 14 were included in this review. Critical appraisal tools from the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) were used to evaluate the included studies, and their level of evidence was also determined. The findings can be categorized into two main areas: studies investigating interventions aimed at reducing negative behaviors related to weight bias and prejudice, and studies focusing on assessing these attitudes. The evidence points in a consistent direction: nurses exhibit negative attitudes toward patients with obesity. The need for strategies to address this challenge is highlighted, alongside the development of research that complements the current evidence with a deeper and more detailed understanding of this phenomenon.