Clinician’s Attitudes to the Introduction of Routine Weighing in Pregnancy

Table 1

Interview topic guide.

Question	Prompts
Describe the various measurements you undertake during an antenatal clinic visit.	(i) Specifically what measurements do you undertake concerning weight and calculating BMI?; (ii) Do you currently weigh women? All women? When? Sometimes?; (iii) Are you aware of the prompts on Matrix (electronic database) concerning weight?; (iv) Is there anything that makes this easy? Is there anything that makes this difficult?
We are planning on introducing routine weighing for all pregnant women at every antenatal clinic visit. What do you think about this?	(i) Are there practical obstacles you think might make regular weighing difficult?; (ii) Does weighing affect the patient-practitioner relationship?; (iii) Have you had women refuse to be weighed?; (iv) Does anyone have experiences at other centres that regularly weigh patients?; (v) Do you think routine weighing would impact patient outcomes?
What patient factors influence whether they will be weighed in the antenatal clinic?	(i) Does the woman’s baseline weight influence whether you will weigh a woman?; (ii) Does a woman’s interest in her own weight gain influence whether you will weigh a woman?; (iii) In your last antenatal clinic session who were the women that you could or could not weigh?
What clinician factors influence whether they will be weighed in the antenatal clinic?	(i) Some studies have found that overweight clinicians find it more difficult to counsel patients about weight. Do you think a clinician’s weight effects their likelihood to weigh women?; (ii) Do you feel that you have enough knowledge about gestational weight gain to counsel women about their weight?