Nutrition knowledge and attitude of Babcock University medical and nursing students and Inter-professional collaboration with Dietitians in patient care

Abstract

Objective: The study assessed nutrition knowledge and attitude of final year medical and nursing students and inter-professional collaboration with dietitians in the management of patients. Methodology: This cross-sectional study of all final year medical and nursing and Babcock University students collected quantitative data using a structured questionnaire that contains sections on nutrition instruction hours, knowledge, attitude, and barriers to nutrition. Data obtained was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Statistics were significant at p<0.05. Result: A total of 159 students participated in the study, 73 medical students and 86 nursing students. The proportion of those who had good, average, and poor knowledge scores were 50.3%, 39%, and 10.7% respectively. The attitude towards nutrition was positive. There was no significant relationship between nutrition knowledge and nutrition instruction hours during pre-clinical (P=0.368) and clinical years (P=0.245). Conclusion: Significant proportions of the students had good nutrition knowledge, however, there were gaps in knowledge in clinical nutrition; nutritional management of diabetes, hypertension, and renal diseases, respectively. There was a high positive attitude towards nutrition among the students but nutrition education was not perceived as sufficient to adequately prepare them for nutrition care of patients. Insufficient training for doctors and nurses, lack of confidence in the efficacy of the intervention of dietitians/nutritionists, and Lack of interest from patients to see the dietitian were the prominent barriers to inter-professional collaboration with dietitians/nutritionists.