Perception of knowledge about Clinical Hospital Nutrition among resident doctors in a tertiary hospital

Abstract

IntroductionResident physicians’ proper use of nutritional support and knowledge about Clinical Nutrition is essential to ensuring that their patients receive suitable nutritional care. Materials and methodAn online survey was sent to resident physicians at our hospital in specialisations with hospital beds. The survey featured 20 multiple-choice questions scored from 1 to 10 (1 being “completely disagree” and 10 being “completely agree”) across the following themes: nutritional assessment, diets, oral nutritional supplements, enteral nutrition and perception of the Nutrition Unit. ResultsThe survey was completed by 69% of resident physicians in medical specialisations and 70% of those in surgical specialisations. Overall, the average survey score was 6.28, with higher scores among medical residents than surgical residents (6.86 versus 5.38; p < 0.001), especially in the sections on nutritional assessment, diets and oral nutritional supplements. The respondents had a positive perception of the Nutrition Unit (mean score 7.6). DiscussionResidents in medical specialisations afford greater importance to their patients’ nutrition than residents in surgical specialisations, although in both groups the average score was rather low. There is much room for improvement in the training in Clinical Nutrition of this group, and it is important to include topics in Clinical Nutrition in training programmes for all residents in hospital specialisations.