Assessment of Therapeutic Nutritional Knowledge of Jordanian Nurses

Abstract

Nurses have a great contact with hospitalized patients and play an important role in their nutritional management. The current research is a cross-sectional survey, carried out in Al-Hussein Hospital, King Hussein Medical Center, Amman, Jordan, to study the level of therapeutic nutritional knowledge of Jordanian nurses. Two hundred and fifty registered nurses were invited to participate in this study; all of them were Jordanian of the Arabian ethnicity and were selected by simple random sampling method. Of those, two hundred nurses agreed to participate giving a response rate 80%. Data were collected by self-reported questionnaire of 31-items which its validity and reliability were established. We found that the mean correct-response rate for therapeutic nutritional knowledge of Jordanian nurses was suboptimal (58.8%). Moreover, the therapeutic nutritional knowledge related to diabetes (71.6%) was relatively higher than those related to obesity (59.0%) and cardiovascular diseases (54.9%). Woman nurses scored significantly higher correct-response rate for cardiovascular diseases-related therapeutic nutritional knowledge than men (56.6% vs. 51.9%). Twenty out of 31 questions were answered correctly by more than 50% of the nurses. The findings suggest an urgent need to improve the curricula of undergraduate nursing courses regarding the nutrition issues and to promote postgraduate continuing educational programs concerning therapeutic nutrition.

Therapeutic Nutritional Knowledge regarding Cardio-Vascular Diseases among Nursing Students

“…Although 69% of nurses agreed that high blood cholesterol increases the incidence of heart disease [28] which is not in accord with this study.…”

“…This study highlights that 88.65% respondents had good knowledge about low sodium diet recommendation for the treatment of hypertension. A similar type of finding was also obtained in the study conducted by Naseem et al 2013 [28]. The good knowledge towards this may be due to increasing number of hypertension cases day by day.…”

Nutritional Counseling for Hypertensive Patients: Have Final-Year Nursing Students Learnt Enough to Be Able to Offer Advice to Such Patients?

“…With regard to recommendations on fat intake to prevent or manage high blood pressure, the responses of the students are supported by findings of similar studies [29,30]. In a study conducted among nurses in Jordan, a high percentage of the participants believed that patients affected by hypertension should limit their intake of saturated fat (87%) and trans fat (50%) [30].…”

“…This finding suggests that the study participants knew the beneficial role of increased fiber which includes lowering of cholesterol levels and reduced salt intakes in lowering blood pressure. In a similar study [30] conducted among Jordanian nurses, the majority also recommended an increased intake of fiber to hypertension patients. The beneficial role of dietary fiber in the prevention and reduction of arterial blood pressure is well presented in literature [31,32].…”

“…In a study conducted among nurses in Jordan, a high percentage of the participants believed that patients affected by hypertension should limit their intake of saturated fat (87%) and trans fat (50%) [30]. Similarly, in another study among Australian general Practice Registrars, the majority (90%) indicated that reducing saturated fats was a "highly appropriate" strategy in preventing and managing hypertension conditions [29].…”