title: Shared medical appointments: promoting weight loss in a clinical setting.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Shared medical appointments (SMAs) are 90-minute group appointments for patients with similar medical complaints. SMAs include components of a traditional office visit but provide further emphasis on health education. The effectiveness of SMAs on weight-loss in an outpatient setting has not been studied.
  
  
  METHODS
  Weight-loss SMAs were offered by one physician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Teaching content included Diabetes Prevention Program materials. This analysis includes patients who attended at least one SMA (n = 74) compared with patients in the same physician's practice who had at least one office visit and a body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m(2) (n = 356).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The SMA group had a higher proportion of women than the comparison group (76% vs 64%) and were older (mean, 52.4 years; SD, 13.1 years vs mean, 47.0 years; SD, 13.3 years). SMA patients on average lost 1.0% of their baseline weight. Patients in the comparison group on average gained 0.8% of their baseline weight.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  SMAs may be a viable option for physicians to promote weight loss in the clinical setting.
authors.affiliation: Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, Health Policy Research, Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA. lathap@pamfri.org
authors.forename: Latha P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Palaniappan
authors.forename: Amy L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Muzaffar
authors.forename: Elsie J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Eric C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Trevor J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Orchard
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016730:Program Development; D040241:Social Marketing; D014481:United States; D015431:Weight Loss; D055815:Young Adult