Lessons learned from patients' weight-related medical encounters: Results from 34 interviews

How to best care for larger-bodied patients is a complicated issue in modern medicine. The present study seeks to inform current medical practices to ensure the delivery of high-quality and evidence-based care through the examination of higher-weight patients' experiences with weight-related care.

Higher-weight patients (N = 34) completed semi-structured interviews about their experiences and recommendations for weight-related care. Interviews were coded by two independent coders and harmonized. Findings were organized into broad domains of 1) negative care experiences and 2) positive care experiences and recommendations.

Patients described a range of negative care experiences, including stigmatization from providers (e.g., rude, attacking, or insulting communication about weight), while concurrently expressing insufficient weight management support from providers. Positive care experiences and recommendations included patient-centered care (e.g., physician humility and empathy) and attending to the patient's weight, which conveyed concern for the patient.

Our findings reflect patients' ambivalent attitudes toward weight-related care: while weight-focused provider communication can be highly stigmatizing, patients simultaneously desire more weight-management support from providers.

Providers who wish to move their practices from a weight-loss focus to one targeting healthy living should provide a rationale for these shifts to inform patients' perceptions of high-quality care.