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Primary care weight management counseling: physician and patient perspectives
Pamela Davis Martin1, Paula C Rhode, John T Howe
1Division of Primary Care Studies, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, USA.
Unlabelled:
This paper examines the use of the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services for behavioral counseling for overweight patients in the primary care setting.
Methods:
Study 1 assessed counseling practices of family physicians with a 13-item physician questionnaire based on the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services. Study 2 assessed the perception of weight loss recommendations made to obese primary care patients attending a family practice clinic.
Results:
46% of the family physicians responded. The most common referrals were made to dieticians and exercise programs. The patient survey indicated that 80.3% had received weight loss recommendations, and 68.9% had received counseling on diet change or exercise.
Conclusions:
This study found adequate rates of compliance with the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services. However, these results have highlighted the need to expand the guidelines to counsel patients more specifically with regard to weight loss recommendations and to focus on improving patient compliance and motivation.