الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Nutrition is an integrated discipline focused on the role of diet in the prevention and treatment of disease. Diet contributes to 8 of the 10 leading cause of death in the United States, and now obesity has reached epidemic proportion in both adult and pediatric population. Physicians play the major role in helping people with nutritional concerns. The knowledge of the physicians is a basic factor in the health care system, thus physicians need an advanced knowledge of nutrition and high level of skills to deal with the majority of health care problems, and to address the nutritional problems in the global terms. The gap in the nutritional knowledge of the physicians will negatively influence the effective health care as they are influential in educating patients to change their dietary habits in order to improve their patient’s health. This study is an attempt to evaluate the attitude of the physicians regarding the importance of nutrition in medicine and to assess their knowledge level and if they are satisfied with their knowledge level and with the curriculum they studied. Nutrition attitudes and satisfaction were measured by using a previously validated questionnaire. Knowledge was assessed with a multiple-choice quiz. Subjects were asked whether they had any recommendations.The main results of the study were: Almost all physicians had positive attitude towards the importance of nutrition in medicine, they scored 75% 50% of the physicians doubt the patient compliance if they offered them the nutritional counseling 50% of the physicians had doubts about their ability to deliver the nutritional advice (low self- efficacy) Almost all of them consider time as an important tool in the quality of the nutritional advice. Internist, pediatricians, obstetricians, and family medicine physicians had the highest attitude. The younger physicians have positive attitude towards the importance of nutrition in the medical practice than the older physicians. The knowledge of the physicians is considered inadequate, they scored 55.6% The knowledge level of the physicians was poor (50%>) in the fields of biochemical structures of different types of fat, the role of soluble fiber in lowering blood cholesterol level, omega-3 fat in preventing thrombosis, and the effect of short term dieting on metabolism. The knowledge level of the pediatricians, obstetricians, family, and internist t was the highest. Practicing and the working in the field couldn’t improve the knowledge of the physicians. Female physicians and those of older ages with post graduate studies had better knowledge Physicians are not satisfied regarding their nutritional knowledge level, the satisfaction percentage score of the physicians was 44% 83% of the physicians are not satisfied regarding the quality of the studied nutritional knowledge curriculum. 80% of them are not satisfied regarding the quantity of the studied nutritional materials. 85% of the physicians considered time devoted to the nutritional education is not sufficient. 90% of the physicians reported time as a common barrier that affect the nutritional education. 10% reported many other factors as staff experience, lack of good curriculum, and the lack in the physicians’ interest in nutritional education. Physicians of the older age are more satisfied regarding the nutritional education than the younger group. |