Assessment and evaluation of nutrition education among physicians in a tertiary paediatric specialist hospital: The need for improved clinical nutrition teaching

Abstract

Background Nutrition education is one the essential components of any paediatric residency training. However, many paediatricians world-wide have suboptimal knowledge in core clinical nutritional topics. The purpose of our study is to assess the perceived effectiveness of nutrition training among physicians, including paediatric residents, paediatric trainees and paediatricians; identify areas of need for additional education resources and the preferred method of teaching for nutritional topics for medical education. Material and Methods A survey-questionnaire was sent to our physicians in our centre to assess general nutrition education via self-assessment of current nutritional knowledge across 12 distinct topics; importance of teaching amongst these topics and the preferred method of teaching. Results A total of 64 physicians completed the survey with an overall response rate of 88%. Most responders reported having average or above-average knowledge base in all nutritional topics except for nutritional aspects of special diets. Poorest knowledge base (either below average or poor) was reported in special diet ( n = 38, 59.4%), inflammatory bowel disease ( n = 17, 26.6%) and gastrointestinal allergy ( n = 16, 25.0%). There was strong interest in additional teaching needs for the topics of failure to thrive ( n = 38, 59.4%), nutritional assessment ( n = 34, 53.1%) and infant feeding ( n = 31, 48.4%). Most popular teaching methods were clinical case review (31.7%) followed by didactic lectures (29.8%) for overall clinical nutritional education. Conclusions Physicians identified gaps in their nutrition knowledge base and multiple topics were identified for additional nutrition education. Preferred methods of teaching for nutritional education were clinical case reviews and didactic lectures.