Nurse practitioner attitudes and treatment practices for childhood overweight: how do rural and urban practitioners differ?
OBJECTIVE
Pediatric overweight and obesity has become an epidemic problem of our nation. Nurse practitioners (NPs) are exposed to overweight pediatric patients on a regular basis. The purpose of this study was to investigate NP attitudes toward pediatric overweight and obesity and explore their current diagnosis and treatment practices. Differences between rural and urban NPs were also investigated.


METHODS
Survey data were gathered from 1088 family and pediatric NPs from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners member list randomly. Only family and pediatric NPs were included in the sample.


CONCLUSIONS
NPs in the sample believed that pediatric overweight and obesity are problems in need of treatment, but also reported not assessing and diagnosing the condition per current guidelines. Initiation of treatment was reported at very low rates. Rural NPs reported having fewer referral resources than urban NPs.


CONCLUSIONS
NPs are in an ideal position to properly assess, diagnose, and treat pediatric overweight and obesity. The findings suggest that more education on these topics is necessary for NPs. Rural NPs reported fewer referral services, and may need to have more knowledge about how to provide obesity treatment services in their own practice settings due to this disparity.
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado 80639, USA. karen.hessler@unco.edu
Karen
K
Hessler
Mary
M
Siegrist
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009722:Nurse Practitioners; D050177:Overweight / Q000451:nursing / Q000517:prevention & control*; D057184:Practice Patterns, Nurses'; D011365:Professional Practice Location; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D019035:Rural Health Services; D014481:United States; D019037:Urban Health Services