Survey on nutritional knowledge, attitude and practice of medical staff in the nerve profession

Abstract

Objective To investigate nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practice (K-A-P) of medical staff in the nerve-related departments in Hebei province, with the aim of determining a basis for the effective education of nutrition. Methods A multicenter, observational study was utilized to conduct a questionnaire survey. 642 medical staff in nerve-related departments from 15 hospitals in 11 prefecture level cities was surveyed from September 2016 to March 2017 in Hebei Province. Results were statistically analyzed. Results The overall scores of nutrition knowledge, attitude, and practice were 34.88±22.90, 69.14±16.75 and 42.86±18.22, respectively. There were positive correlations between nutrition knowledge and attitude (r=0.150, P<0.001), knowledge and practice (r=0.152, P<0.001), and attitude and practice (r=0.432, P<0.001). The nutrition knowledge score of male medical staff was higher than that of female (t=3.546, P<0.01) however, there was no significant difference between males and females in nutrition attitude and practice scores (t=0.685, P=0.494; t=1.649, P=0.091). In addition, the nutrition knowledge scores of physicians and medical technicians were significantly higher than that of nurses (F=46.89, P<0.01) while the nutrition practice scores of physicians were significantly higher than both medical technicians and nurses (F=7.85, P<0.01). It was also found that nutrition attitude scores of senior and secondary medical staff were higher than junior medical staff (F=5.116, P=0.002) and nutrition practice scores of senior and secondary senior medical staff were higher than that of junior medical staff (F=4.074, P=0.007). Furthermore, it was found that nutrition knoledge scores of undergraduate, master and doctoral degree staff were higher than that of junior college staff (F=15.617, P<0.001) and nutrition attitude score of undergraduate and master degree staff were significantly higher than that of junior college staff (F=4.11, P=0.003). It was also found that the nutrition knowledge scores of medical staff with less than 5 years of work experience were significantly higher than those with more than 5 years of work experience (F=3.312, P=0.02). However, the scores of nutrition attitude of medical staff with more than 15 years of work experience were significantly higher than those with less than 15 years of work experience (F=6.356, P<0.001) and the scores of nutrition practice of medical staff with 10-15 years of work experience were higher than that of less than 5 years and 5-10 years of work experience(F=2.959, P=0.032). It was also identified that the top three ways to obtain nutrition knowledge were learning at work (68.85%), learning at university (68.69%) and reading books and journals (57.79%). Conclusion The medical staff of nerve-related departments in Hebei province has positive attitudes towards nutrition treatments. However, their mastery of nutritional knowledge and practice could and should be improved further. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the nutrition education for medical staff of the nerve profession. Key words: Nerve; Medical staff; Nutrition; Knowledge; Attitude; Practice