Doctor-patient communication in obesity disease - the perspective of Polish primary care physicians

Obesity is a chronic disease that is affecting an increasing number of patients. The prevalence of obesity, the age of patients affected, and the range of associated comorbidities suggest that general practitioners will engage with this patient group extensively throughout their professional careers. It is regrettable that numerous obstacles impede the efficacious treatment of obesity by primary care physicians. These include inadequate training in obesity management and communication with patients, as well as a pervasive and problematic bias in the approach to the treatment of patients with obesity.

The objective of the study was to examine the knowledge, self-assessment, experiences and perceptions of primary care doctors in Poland with regard to the communication and management of obesity. The data were collected via computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). The sample was deliberately random selected from the available database of numbers. The inclusion criteria were aged 24 or over and active working as a primary care doctor in Poland. The research sample comprised 150 primary care doctors with various medical specialties, including the following: family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, endocrinology, diabetology, and others. An even distribution of participants was not ensured with respect to the parameters considered.

The findings of our study indicate that primary care physicians mostly disagreed with the view that patients living with obesity are less hardworking or more demanding but just over half disagreed that these patients are lazier than others. Doctors reported rarely using fear-based language or blaming excessive food consumption for obesity. Instead, many emphasized that obesity is a disease and considered the patient's perspective. Doctors who rated their communication skills and medical knowledge needed for conversations with patients living with obesity more highly were more likely to address this topic during a visit for an unrelated medical condition. Those who avoided the topic often felt they lacked the skills or knowledge to engage patients effectively. Almost half of the surveyed physicians had not received any training in communicating with patients living with obesity and only 11% had the issue addressed in a course for specialization.

The study indicates a necessity for changes in the curricula of both pre- and postgraduate education, including an enhancement of the knowledge and abilities of primary care providers in the domain of communication during visits with patients with obesity, the encouragement of lifestyle modifications and the implementation of efficacious treatments for obesity, as well as activities designed to modify the negative attitudes of primary care physicians towards patients living with obesity which should not appear in healthcare at all.