Applicability Evaluation of Job Standards for Diabetes Nutritional Management by Clinical Dietitian

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate applicability of job standards for diabetes nutrition management by hospital clinical dietitians. In order to promote the clinical nutrition services, it is necessary to present job standards of clinical dietitian and to actively apply these standardized tasks to the medical institution sites. The job standard of clinical dietitians for diabetic nutrition management was distributed to hospitals over 300 beds. Questionnaire was collected from 96 clinical dietitians of 40 tertiary hospitals, 47 general hospitals, and 9 hospitals. Based on each 5-point scale, the importance of overall duty was 4.4 ± 0.5, performance was 3.6 ± 0.8, and difficulty was 3.1 ± 0.7. ‘Nutrition intervention’ was 4.5 ± 0.5 for task importance, ‘nutrition assessment’ was 4.0 ± 0.7 for performance, and ‘nutrition diagnosis’ was 3.4 ± 0.9 for difficulty. These 3 items were high in each category. Based on the grid diagram, the tasks of both high importance and high performance were ‘checking basic information,’ ‘checking medical history and therapy plan,’ ‘decision of nutritional needs,’ ‘supply of foods and nutrients,’ and ‘education of nutrition and self-management.’ The tasks with high importance but low performance were ‘derivation of nutrition diagnosis,’ ‘planning of nutrition intervention,’ ‘monitoring of nutrition intervention process.’ The tasks of both high importance and high difficulty were ‘derivation of nutrition diagnosis,’ ‘planning of nutrition intervention,’ ‘supply of foods and nutrients,’ ‘education of nutrition and self-management,’ and ‘monitoring of nutrition intervention process.’ The tasks of both high performance and high difficulty were ‘documentation of nutrition assessment,’ ‘supply of foods and nutrients,’ and ‘education of nutrition and self-management.’