None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The negative attitudes and beliefs towards people living with overweight or obesity exhibited by healthcare students have the potential to impact the care they provide to this population in future practice. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to develop interventions that aim to reduce weight bias in healthcare students. This study aims to investigate whether evoking empathy towards people living with overweight or obesity or providing education about the multifactorial causes of obesity will be the most effective in reducing Australian healthcare students' explicit weight bias. Students will view one of 3 videos (about empathy evoking, multifactorial causes of obesity, and smoking) and answer several questionnaires. It is hypothesised that the empathy evoking video and the video about the multifactorial causes of obesity will be more effective in reducing students' explicit weight bias compared to the smoking video. We will also explore whether one of the two main videos (empathy evoking and multifactorial causes of obesity) is more effective in reducing students' explicit weight bias.
Interventions
Healthcare students recruited from universities around Australia will be randomly assigned to watch one of two intervention videos. The intervention will take place online, implemented via Qualtrics. Participants will be able to take part in the intervention at a place and time of their choosing.
The two videos are:
1) Empathy: this video is 10 minutes long and is about an individual living with obesity. The video describes the individual's lifestyle habits (including diet and physical activi
Healthcare students recruited from universities around Australia will be randomly assigned to watch one of two intervention videos. The intervention will take place online, implemented via Qualtrics. Participants will be able to take part in the intervention at a place and time of their choosing. The two videos are: 1) Empathy: this video is 10 minutes long and is about an individual living with obesity. The video describes the individual's lifestyle habits (including diet and physical activity), weight loss, weight stigma experienced in healthcare, and participation in an organisation designed to end (and research) weight stigma. The video also shows how multiple practising healthcare professionals converse with the individual living with obesity on how they can approach patients living with overweight or obesity and treat them respectfully and impartially. Overall, this video is designed to induce empathy for people living with overweight or obesity. 2) Multifactorial causes of obesity: this video is animated and is 10 minutes in length. The video describes appetite, diet, metabolism, epigenetic and genetic influences of obesity, environmental and social influences of obesity, dietary habits of human ancestors, complications of obesity, and treatments for obesity. Overall, this video is designed to provide education about the multifactorial causes of obesity. The two videos will be viewed by participants once: following the completion of baseline outcome measures (design: baseline measures > videos > immediate post-intervention measures > 2 WEEK PERIOD > follow-up outcome measures). These videos have been developed by The Obesity Collective, the peak body for obesity in Australia. These videos are not yet available to the public. The videos will be embedded in Qualtrics, and participants will be able to view them as they complete the study. Monitoring the adherence to the intervention is not the primary goal of the study; however, will be monitored by the number of participants who complete the entire study vs. the number of participants who drop out. Who will conduct the intervention: 4th-year PhD student Ravisha J will conduct the intervention. Ravisha has 5 years of experience in conducting psychological research.
Sponsors
Ravisha S. Jayawickrama
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject, Caregiver)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
17 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Individuals will be eligible to participate in this study if they are currently enrolled (as at February 2024) in a healthcare course at an Australian tertiary institution either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. Students from healthcare courses including (but not limited to) medicine, paramedicine, medical imaging, dentistry, oral health therapy, nursing, midwifery, dietetics, nutrition, psychology, counselling, social work, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, chiropractic, exercise science, audiology, optometry, public health/health promotion, and pharmacology are eligible to participate. Additional inclusion criteria are for students to be at least 17 years of age, able to understand and write in English, able to provide informed consent to participate, and have normal or corrected to normal vision.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria include university students enrolled in non-healthcare courses (e.g., business), practising healthcare professionals (e.g., registered dietitians, practising GPs) and students who are unable to view short videos (e.g., animations) due to a health condition.
Outcome results
None listed