Prejudicial Attitudes Toward Clients Who Are Obese: Measuring Implicit Attitudes of Occupational Therapy Students

Abstract

Stigmatizing attitudes can undermine the quality of health care. This study examines the attitudes and beliefs of 189 occupational therapy students toward clients who are obese. Results indicate that the occupational therapy students were more likely to make negative evaluations of clients who were obese. The univariate between-subjects analysis of the Attitudes Toward Obesity-Prejudicial Evaluation and Social Interaction Scale scores found that the difference between the means for overweight and average-weight clients for Social Distance and Judgment were statistically significant (t(187) = 2.06, p = .04; t(187) = -2.008, p = .04). There was also a statistically significant difference between the Social Distance score means for female and male clients (t(187) = -2.12, p = .03). The explicit measures, the Attitudes Toward Obese Persons and the Beliefs About Obese Persons scores, showed that many students in the sample had stereotypical beliefs and, to a lesser extent, had negative attitudes about obesity. These results add support to the inclusion in occupational therapy curricula content that specifically addresses the awareness of stigmatizing stereotypes and attitudes toward clients who are obese.

Occupational therapy and obesity: An integrative literature review

“…Northey and Barnett (2012) also advocated education about physical activity for people with severe mental illness. Education of occupational therapists, and students about obesity was also described in two of the papers (Forhan & Law, 2009;Vroman & Cote, 2011) who suggested that this was necessary to overcome stereotyped beliefs and prejudicial attitudes and ensure quality service provision.…”

Weight stigma and health – Repercussions on the health of adolescents and adults: integrative review of the literature

“…It is worth noting that the fear of judgment on the part of health professionals is a consequence of the treatment given by most of them. That was observed in studies that found that physical therapists 88 , occupational therapists 89 , physicians, nurses, and other professionals of a university hospital 90 , maintained harmful attitudes and stereotyped beliefs about obesity. Acording to these studies, this professionals use to judging patients according to negative adjectives as often as the general population, and this could result in the non-involvement of people living with obesity with the health system 91 .…”

Anti-Fat Bias of Occupational Therapy Students

“…To combat prejudice, the existence of anti-fat bias amongst occupational therapists' must first be acknowledged -and then measured (Miller et al, 2013). Vroman and Cote (2011) have previously explored the existence of occupational therapists' biases toward fat people and found occupational therapy students had both explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) prejudice, and this attitude made students more likely to make negative evaluations of fat clients. However, no link was made between students' antifat bias and factors that might influence these biases.…”

“…As the personal attitudes and beliefs of occupational therapists impact client evaluations, clinical reasoning, and the therapeutic relationship (Vroman & Cote, 2011), more evidence-based research is necessary to explore the anti-fat biases of occupational therapists, including future occupational therapy practitionersoccupational therapy students -as "research has shown students' attitudes positively correlate with those of practitioners of the same profession" (Vroman & Cote, 2011, p. 87). Understanding if there are relationships between anti-fat prejudice and occupational therapy students' orientation toward theoretical or conceptual practice models and frames of references could also provide insight into influences that reinforce or reduce these biases.…”