What Factors Make Primary Care Providers Better at Caring for Children with Overweight or Obesity?
Written by Thin Han
Edited by Emily Moran
February 9th, 2023
Edited by Emily Moran
February 9th, 2023
Research
In general, people shy away from talking about topics such as being overweight or obese. It is seen as something negative that should be worked on privately. However, the tendency to shy away from these topics does not mean the quality of healthcare toward people who are overweight or obese should decrease in any way. This is especially true for the quality of healthcare toward children who are overweight or obese as treatments toward them in childhood can have detrimental and lasting effects on them. In order to maintain the quality of healthcare of these children, it is important to not only identify the factors of the primary care providers, or PCP, that can provide that level of quality, but also to identify outside factors that can help PCP provide better care.
Scientists conducted a national random survey of American Academy of Pediatrics members and found two important factors that positively correlate with the primary care providers’ capability to offer good quality healthcare to children who are overweight or obese (Liebhart et al., 2022). Those two factors are health risk assessment and patient-centered counseling. Health risk assessment is usually paired with biometric testing in order to collect health information such as a person’s health status, risks, and habits. Patient-centered counseling is focusing on what the patient can do to solve health issues on his or her own instead of immediately trying to solve the problem (Liebhart et al., 2022). These two factors, health risk assessment and patient-centered counseling, are positively improved by methods such as training, PCP’s awareness of barriers that are getting in the way of treatments, and PCP's own personal belief that they themselves actually play an important role in obesity (Liebhart et al., 2022). On the other hand, the same two factors are negatively impacted by the lack of time PCP have in counseling and consulting patients while also lacking in resources that they can be referred to for in assistance with treatments. In conclusion, these two factors make primary care providers better at caring for children who are overweight or obese.