Dataset Information

Physician respect for patients with obesity.

ABSTRACT: Obesity stigma is common in our society, and a general stigma towards obesity has also been documented in physicians. We hypothesized that physician respect for patients would be lower in patients with higher body mass index (BMI).We analyzed data from the baseline visit of 40 physicians and 238 patients enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of patient-physician communication. The independent variable was BMI, and the outcome was physician respect for the patient. We performed Poisson regression analyses with robust variance estimates, accounting for clustering of patients within physicians, to examine the association between BMI and physician ratings of respect for particular patients.The mean (SD) BMI of the patients was 32.9(8.1) kg/m(2). Physicians had low respect for 39% of the participants. Higher BMI was significantly and negatively associated with respect [prevalence ratio (PrR) 0.83, 95% CI: 0.73-0.95; p = 0.006; per 10 kg/m(2) increase in BMI]. BMI remained significantly associated with respect after adjustment for patient age and gender (PrR 0.86, 95%CI: 0.74-1.00; p = 0.049).We found that higher patient BMI was associated with lower physician respect. Further research is needed to understand if lower physician respect for patients with higher BMI adversely affects the quality of care.

SUBMITTER: Huizinga MM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2771236 | biostudies-other | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Physician respect for patients with obesity.

Huizinga Mary Margaret MM Cooper Lisa A LA Bleich Sara N SN Clark Jeanne M JM Beach Mary Catherine MC

Journal of general internal medicine 20090918 11

<h4>Introduction</h4>Obesity stigma is common in our society, and a general stigma towards obesity has also been documented in physicians. We hypothesized that physician respect for patients would be lower in patients with higher body mass index (BMI).<h4>Methods</h4>We analyzed data from the baseline visit of 40 physicians and 238 patients enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of patient-physician communication. The independent variable was BMI, and the outcome was physician respect for the ...[more]

PMID: 19763700

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundCancer cachexia is a catabolic condition characterized by skeletal muscle wasting, consequent to tumor burden, which negatively impacts tolerance to cancer therapies and contributes to increased mortality. Partly because of the limited knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of cancer cachexia derived from human studies, however, the ability to therapeutically intervene remains elusive. The purpose of the current study was therefore to better define the phenotype of skeletal muscle obtained from patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which has one of the highest rates of cachexia.MethodsMorphological analyses were performed on rectus abdominis muscle biopsies obtained from resectable PDAC patients undergoing tumor resection surgery (N = 20) and from weight-stable non-cancer control subjects undergoing benign abdominal surgery (N = 16). PDAC patients with a body weight loss of greater than 5% during the previous 6 months were considered cachectic (N = 15). Statistical tests were two sided.ResultsSkeletal muscle from cachectic PDAC patients had increased collagen content compared with non-cancer control subjects (1.43% vs 9.66%, P = .0004, Dunn test). Across all PDAC patients, collagen content positively correlated with body weight loss (P = .0016, r = 0.672), was increased in patients with lymph node metastasis (P = .007, Mann-Whitney U test), and was associated with survival on univariate (HR = 1.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02 to 1.04, P = .008) and multivariable analyses (HR = 1.08, 95% CI = 1.00 to 1.17, P = .038). Cachectic PDAC patients also displayed increased lipid deposition (2.63% vs 5.72%, P = .042), infiltration of CD68+ macrophages (63.6 cells/mm2 vs 233.8 cells/mm2, P = .0238), calcium deposition (0.21% vs 2.51%, P = .030), and evidence of deficient cellular quality control mechanisms (Mann-Whitney U test). Transcriptional profiling of all patients supported these findings by identifying gene clusters related to wounding, inflammation, and cellular response to TGF-β upregulated in cachectic PDAC patients compared with non-cancer control subjects.ConclusionsTo our knowledge, this work is the first to demonstrate increased collagen content in cachectic PDAC patients that is associated with poor survival.

Dataset Information

Physician respect for patients with obesity.

Publications

Physician respect for patients with obesity.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets