Learning Objective #1: Describe the characteristics of bariatric patient care that nurses perceive as challenging

Learning Objective #2: Describe the potential impact of obesity on nurses' ability to safely and holistically perform nursing care

---

Many people in the United States directly or indirectly, are affected by obesity. Many obese patients have primary health problems or co-morbidities that lead to inpatient hospitalization. Unfortunately there is not sufficient research-based nursing literature to guide best nursing practice for bariatric patients. In 2004 a collaborative research group of university faculty and hospital staff performed focused group research to describe the challenges nurses face in caring for morbidly obese patients and to generate future relevant research questions. The results of this research included that nurses perceive unique challenges associated with bariatric patient care in many different ways. One unique area involved patient-family and nurse-family interactions. Nurses verbalized perceived challenges enlisting family support and teaching families of morbidly obese patients. Nurses also perceived challenges with nurse-patient and nurse-family relationships that may arise from differing expectations of care. Bariatric patients and families may have learned self-care interventions that do not coincide with conventional inpatient nursing care. Perceptions also included concerns that family members may experience role-strain as a result of their potential inability to physically care for obese family members. However, nurses' also verbalized perceptions that families perform too much of the care obese patients should be performing for themselves. Nurses' perceptions of the nurse-patient-family relationship are important in the provision of nursing care and facilitating appropriate patient teaching and post-discharge caregiver support.