Assessment of Nursing Students’ Attitudes Toward Obese Individuals

Abstract

Background: Obesity, known as one of the most important health problems in the worldwide, is a disease that must be threated. Psychologically, obesity may lead to stigmatization and result with negative stereotyping, judgments, bullying, low self-esteem, self-under treatment, depression, and social isolation. Objectives of the study to identify the attitudes of nursing students about obese individuals.

Material and method: Descriptive study design was used to adopted current study. The study extended from (15-12-2021) to (15-5-2022). The sample of the study consists of (129) students from second, third, and fourth stages at college of nursing in university of Mosul. Data were collected from participants using an online survey and questionnaires took approximately 10 min to complete.

Results: the study found that there are (51.16%) of the nursing students are positive attitudes about obese individual while, (48.84%) of the negative attitudes, And there a highly significant between nursing attitudes and some demographic data such as socioeconomic status, stage, and BMI.

Conclusion and recommendations: the researchers concluded that more than half of the students, with a slight percentage, had positive attitudes towards obese people. And there a highly significant between nursing attitudes and their some demographic data such as socioeconomic status, stage, and BMI. The researchers recommend not to show negative feelings and behaviors towards obese people, but to encourage and support them to control weight to get rid of health problems resulting from obesity.