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. 2025 May 3:18:1389-1409.
doi: 10.2147/DMSO.S518994. eCollection 2025.

Health Beliefs and Obesity Bias as Determinants of Attitudes Toward the Rising Tides of GLP-1 Medications: Mounjaro and Ozempic

Kholoud Al-Mahzoum  1 , Doaa H Abdelaziz  2   3 , Fajer Alenezi  4 , Jouza Almutairi  4 , Mohammad Khaled Alsubaiei  4 , Abdullah Bader Alharbi  4 , Sarah Al-Rawi  4 , Shahad Al-Rawi  4 , Fatemah Faisal Bousheheri  4 , Ahmad Hameed Alhajri  4 , Saif Nasser Alajmi  4 , Mohammed Sallam  5 , Noha O Mansour  6 , Eman Khamis Alnazly  7   8 , Malik Sallam  9   10   11
Affiliations

Health Beliefs and Obesity Bias as Determinants of Attitudes Toward the Rising Tides of GLP-1 Medications: Mounjaro and Ozempic

Kholoud Al-Mahzoum et al. Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes. .

Abstract

Introduction: Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists including Mounjaro and Ozempic, are increasingly used for weight management. Assessing the attitudes and beliefs of current and future healthcare professionals is important considering their roles in recommending and prescribing these drugs. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes toward Mounjaro and Ozempic and its correlation with obesity/overweight bias among healthcare professionals and students in medicine and pharmacy in Arab countries.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was based on a self-administered online questionnaire with participants recruited via a convenient snowball sampling approach. Attitudes towards Mounjaro and Ozempic were evaluated using a newly developed construct termed Mini Health Beliefs and Attitudes toward GLP-1 Drugs Scale (mini-HBAGS), alongside a novel scale to assess obesity/overweight bias (OOB). The new constructs' validity was assessed via content validity, principal component analysis (PCA), and Cronbach's α.

Results: The study included 413 participants predominantly from Kuwait (32.8%), Egypt (20.9%), Saudi Arabia (18.8%), and Jordan (15.4%). Familiarity with Mounjaro and Ozempic was high (83.6%), with 17.2% recommending them. Weight management drug use was 14.0%, including 5.9% for Mounjaro and Ozempic. Among participants familiar with Mounjaro and Ozempic, the mean OOB score was 3.83±0.62 (range: 1.00-5.00), indicating agreement, while the mean score for the mini-H-BAGS was 2.70±0.716 (range: 1.00-5.00), indicating a slightly unfavorable attitude. PCA identified perceived benefits and barriers, and subjective norms and attitudes, as key determinants of attitudes toward Mounjaro and Ozempic.

Conclusion: This study revealed slightly negative attitudes toward Mounjaro and Ozempic among healthcare professionals and students in Arab countries. The negative attitudes observed likely reflect concerns about side effects, cost, and accessibility of these medications. The findings highlighted the need for targeted education in Arab countries to address obesity bias and encourage a balanced evaluation of the benefits and risks of GLP-1 drugs for weight management.

Keywords: GLP-1 medications; health beliefs; mounjaro; obesity BIAs; ozempic; pharmacological interventions; weight management.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Filtration algorithm based on quality control measures to reach the final study sample.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Error bars showing the associations between obesity/overweight bias (OOB) categories items of the health beliefs and attitudes toward glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs scale. p values were calculated using the Mann Whitney U-test. CI: confidence interval of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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