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OASIS: The Obesity Awareness and Insight Scale
Philip Gerretsen1,2,3,4,5, Julia Kim1,2, Parita Shah1,2
1Multimodal Imaging Group, Research Imaging Centre, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Obesity Medicine
|December 4, 2018
Summary
A new scale, the Obesity Awareness and Insight Scale (OASIS), was developed to measure how aware individuals are of their obesity. This tool can help understand how obesity awareness impacts treatment adherence and outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Medical Sociology
- Public Health
Background:
- Impaired illness awareness regarding obesity is understudied.
- Lack of acceptance of obesity can negatively affect treatment adherence and clinical outcomes.
- Existing measures do not adequately assess subjective obesity awareness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review existing measures of obesity awareness.
- To develop and validate a novel scale measuring core domains of obesity awareness.
Main Methods:
- A systematic literature review identified no specific measure for subjective obesity awareness.
- The Obesity Awareness and Insight Scale (OASIS) was developed to assess General Illness Awareness, Symptom Attribution, Awareness of Need for Treatment, and Negative Consequences.
- Psychometric properties were assessed in 100 participants recruited via online survey.
Main Results:
- OASIS demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.89).
- The scale showed good convergent and discriminant validity, and reliable test-retest scores (ICC=0.76).
- Exploratory factor analysis indicated a single underlying component for OASIS.
Conclusions:
- OASIS is a comprehensive, obesity-specific instrument for measuring subjective awareness.
- It can be utilized in research and clinical settings.
- OASIS can assess the influence of obesity awareness on treatment adherence and outcomes.
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