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Nutrition-related knowledge, beliefs and practices of Australian nursing staff.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the study was to examine the general food and nutrition-related beliefs and knowledge of nursing professionals attending post-partum women.

Design: Data were collected by self-administered questionnaire.

Subjects: Three hundred and sixty-two hospital-based nursing staff responsible for the care of post-parturient women.

Setting: Eight metropolitan and regional hospitals in Queensland and three maternity hospitals in Canberra.

Main outcome measures: Beliefs, opinions and intentions relating to food, nutrition and weight; knowledge of requirements of core foods; and sources of nutrition information.

Statistical analysis: Standard statistical tests were used to measure frequencies and assess bivariate relationships.

Results: Almost all participants (97.8%) were confident they could give good advice to their patients about a healthy balanced diet. The majority (65.5%) reported providing such advice at least weekly, 27.9% daily, and 19.5% rarely or never gave nutritional advice. The food-related beliefs of most participants (>85%) were in line with current knowledge for 78% of questions. However, their knowledge of core food requirements for adults was inadequate; only 0.6% gave correct answers to all four food intake questions, 16.8% gave three correct answers, 62% two and 20.7% one correct answer. The most commonly cited sources of nutrition information were professional training (51.4%), reading (38.7%), media (14.9%), self-education and work-related experience (10.8%), dietitian (10.5%), school (7.5%), family (6.4%) and dieting (5.0%).

Conclusion: Nursing staff frequently provide nutritional advice to post-partum women. There is a need to ensure such information is accurate. Further research should explore ways in which this can be achieved.

Key words: belief, food, knowledge, nursing staff, nutrition.

INTRODUCTION

A substantial proportion of the disease burden in Australia is related to poor nutrition and inadequate levels of physical activity and thus is preventable. (1,2) For example, it has been estimated that only a small weight loss (5 kg) among overweight and obese Australians would reduce the diabetes-associated health-care costs by $45.1 million per year (3) and the health-care costs of colorectal, breast, lung and prostate cancers could be reduced by $58.8 million per year by increasing the intake of vegetables in the community. (4)

In order to improve the health of Australians, health authorities have developed nutrition (5-7) and physical activity guidelines, (8) a national nutrition policy, (9) and strategies to support this policy. (1,10) Included in the strategies to ensure good nutrition and maintain a healthy weight is the dissemination of these guidelines and more general nutrition knowledge to health professionals. (1,10)

In Australia, mothers are the major providers of food for their families, (11) and women appear to be motivated to change during pregnancy and in the post-partum period. (12) Previous research with post-partum women has shown that although most of them believed they could provide a healthy balanced diet for their families, their knowledge of food intake recommendations was inadequate. (13) There is a wide variety of nutrition-related advice available in the community from a number of sources including: health promotion messages, industry-sponsored messages, health professionals, media, books and magazines. The women in the study cited many of these as their sources of nutrition information. However, such information is not always accurate and can be conflicting, thus causing confusion. (14)

Nursing staff are considered to be a credible and reliable source of health information (15,16) and most post-partum women come into contact with nursing staff. Thus, some nutrition-related questions were included in a larger study examining the health-related beliefs, knowledge and practices of professionals attending women in the post-partum period. (17) This work reports on the nutrition component of that survey.

METHODS

Participants

Data were collected by questionnaire from hospital-based nursing staff responsible for the care of post-parturient women in eight metropolitan and regional hospitals in Queensland (Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Gold Coast and Brisbane) and three hospitals in Canberra. Because of the relatively small size of the ACT when compared with Queensland, the survey was conducted in all of the local maternity hospitals that were operational in August 1998. In Queensland, the survey was conducted, between March 1999 and April 2000, in the largest maternity hospital (based on number of deliveries) in each town. Participants included midwives, registered nurses and enrolled nurses who regularly worked in the obstetric and postnatal wards of these hospitals.

Study design

After obtaining ethics approval from the James Cook University Ethics Committee and the Ethics Committee of each of the participating...

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