A two-way street? Examining nurses' personal experiences of weight bias in clinical settings

Weight bias is a pervasive form of prejudice that stigmatizes individuals who are perceived to carry excess body weight. Much research has examined weight bias in medical settings, paying particular attention to its impact on the care of patients with overweight or obesity. However, little research has considered the impact of weight bias experienced by health professionals. Such inquiries are particularly important for the field of nursing because of the prevalence of overweight and obesity in this field and the key role nurses play in health promotion within patient care.

For this reason, the present study sought to explore nurses' personal experiences of weight bias in clinical settings in relation to their self-reported beliefs that their weight impacts their professional credibility when providing care to patients.

Conditional Process Analysis in a sample of registered nurses (RNs) who had returned to graduate school to pursue advanced nursing degrees (N = 223) revealed that having experienced weight bias in a clinical setting was positively associated with nurses' belief that their weight impacts their professional credibility, but only for RNs with BMIs over 30.23. Specifically, BMI moderated this association such that effect size of experiences of weight bias on perceived credibility continued to increase as BMI increased. Qualitative analyses of RNs reflecting on their professional credibility further elaborated on the quantitative findings.

Results indicate the negative implications of weight bias both for RNs' wellbeing and comprehensive patient care, particularly for RNs with overweight or obesity.