Waist Circumference Measurement: Not a Waste of Time

Background: The following executive summary is a summation of an education seminar completed as part of the requirements for a Doctor of Nursing Practice capstone project. The gap in practice is a need for more knowledge among health care professionals regarding waist circumference measurement (WCM) in the outpatient clinical setting. A lack of knowledge may lead to an underutilization of WCM and a missed opportunity to identify patients at higher risk for cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disease. Objective: To address the practice problem, an evidence-based practice question was developed to assess if an education seminar would increase the knowledge of health care professionals on WCM. Several sources of evidence support the importance of WCM, including multiple evidence-based practice guidelines recommending the use of WCM and body mass index to assess patients’ cardiovascular and cardiometabolic risk. Mothods: A five-question rating scale assessment via Zoom polling was given to the participants before and after the education seminar. Results: Ten participants participated in the education seminar. Preassessment results revealed that 50% of the participants had little or no knowledge of WCM. Postassessment results showed that all participants indicated having knowledge or being very knowledgeable about all five questions. Conclusions/Implications for Nursing: Recommendations are to continue to present education seminars to health care professionals in the outpatient setting to increase the overall understanding of WCM. Ideas to increase recruitment include hosting the education seminar within prescheduled meetings at health care organizations, including local university faculty, offering incentives such as continuing education credits to participants, and sending reminders of the event. This increase in knowledge can translate to better preventative care for patients by utilizing WCM as a standard practice. More research must be completed to assess if increased utilization of WCM will lead to patients having fewer chronic diseases and healthier lives.