Barriers to Positively Impact Weight Gain in a Psychiatric Inpatient Unit

Weight gain is a problematic issue for patients with serious mental illness. A previously published study found that hospitalized psychiatric patients gained over 6 lb in stays ≥ 30 days. Furthermore, hospital-wide changes to promote healthy eating were unsuccessful in stemming weight gain. A second study was initiated to institute further interventions to decrease the amount of weight gained by inpatients. Sadly, these interventions were unsuccessful. As inpatient weight gain is a chronic and significant medical problem faced by mental health providers, this report outlines the hurdles faced in this project so that others can glean important insights into tackling this issue.