Children who are overweight or obese : attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of nursing students in Taiwan

Abstract

Background: Childhood overweight/obesity is a major public health problem in contemporary society. Controlling the childhood overweight/obesity epidemic requires an international effort. Nurses have a significant role to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours to prevent childhood overweight/obesity. Nurses' attitudes and knowledge can influence the care of patients. There are only a few studies that address nurses' attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about children who are overweight/obese. Understanding the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of future nurses about childhood overweight/obesity can help educators to improve nursing curricula. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine nursing students' attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about childhood overweight/obesity in Taiwan. Methods: This study used a descriptive quantitative design. Initially, an integrative review of the nursing literature was conducted to understand what was already known in relation to nurses' attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about childhood overweight/obesity. Second, a survey tool with three sections was developed and translated from English to Mandarin. The first section of the survey measured attitudes and beliefs of nursing students toward childhood overweight/obesity. The second section explored student nurses' knowledge of overweight/obese children. The third section was demographic data. The tool was psychometrically tested in a pilot study with undergraduate bachelor nursing students in Taiwan. It was modified and data were collected from two different cohorts of student nurses at a university in Taiwan. One cohort was enrolled in a 2-year program, the other cohort were enrolled in a 4-year program. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The findings are presented as part of a series of published papers in this thesis. Both groups of students had high scores on the attitudes and belief scale indicating these students generally had high scores on the attitude scale about childhood overweight/obesity. When examining the two cohorts of students, students in the 2-year nursing program tended to be more neutral than the 4-year program in their attitudes towards children who are overweight/obesity. The survey results indicated that these students had a good general knowledge about childhood overweight/obese. However, the majority of students lacked knowledge about the definition of children's BMI. Further, only a small percentage of students could recognise the health problems that could be associated with childhood overweight/obesity. Finally, there was no correlation between nursing students' attitudes and knowledge about childhood overweight/obesity. Conclusion: Nursing students, because of their professional role, have the potential to provide health advice to children who are overweight/obese. In this study, nursing students had high scores on the attitudes and belief scale and a good general knowledge about childhood overweight/obesity. However, this study has shown where improvements to the education of student nurses is required such as knowledge of BMI and health risks that could be caused by childhood overweight/obesity. The identification of this gap in knowledge demonstrated it is essential that students should receive continuing education about this issue to help them work with children and families in their future practice.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English