S1213 Resident Perception on Nutrition Counseling

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Poor nutrition is a major contributor to obesity and is a major public health problem. However, nutrition education on patient counseling in all phases of medical training is limited and those nutritional interventions are not translated into action in medical training or practice. METHODS: A 10-question survey was conducted to understand resident perception and knowledge-base of nutrition counseling. It was given to 32 internal medicine residents. We assessed their confidence level on counseling patients on nutrition, weight loss, and quality of their counsel through multiple choice questions. The questionnaire was developed through US physician expert opinion consensus, US Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines, and Harvard School of Nutrition guidelines. RESULTS: We sent the pre-survey prior to a noon conference didactic about introduction to nutrition counseling. On a 5-point confidence scale (1 = not confident, 3 = somewhat confident, 5 = very confident) residents reported an average of 3.16 to 3.44 on their ability to counsel on nutrition. Additionally, less than 35% of residents surveyed were able to correctly answer knowledge-based questions of US dietary guidelines. CONCLUSION: We surveyed resident-physicians on their comfortability of nutrition education for patients. Afterwards, these residents went through an introductory noon conference describing diet patterns, weight loss and exercise strategies, and practical ways to deliver nutrition counseling to patients. Our pre-survey data revealed that residents are not very confident on counseling patients about counseling and that less than half the residents had correct knowledge on dietary guidelines. As physicians are the primary access to give patients dietary advice on health behaviors, it is important that residents are given the education and tools to confidently counsel patients on evidence-based nutrition and weight-loss goals. Future focus on education in resident curriculum will include in-depth analysis and study on dietary guidelines in patients like NASH, IBD, CKD. Additionally, we will create didactics based on ACG guidelines on nutrition in the hospitalized patient. Residents need further nutrition education as it is not only good medicine and patient-centered care, but sound economics to alleviate the global disease burden with preventative medicine.Table 1.: How confident do you feel in your ability to accomplish the following tasks? (n = 32)Figure 1.: According to US dietary guidelines, how many servings of vegetables should an average American consume in 1 day? (n = 32).Figure 2.: According to US physical activity guidelines, how much should an average American exercise per week? (n = 32).