Nurses knowledge and attitude in the perception of nutrition

33^rd Euro Nursing & Medicare Summit

October 08-10, 2018 | Edinburgh, Scotland

Aviva Alagem Mizrahi

Sheba Medical Center, Israel

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Adv Practice Nurs

Abstract :

Malnutrition in the hospitalized patients is one of the complications that occur during hospitalization. It occurs at the rate of 30-40% in the hospitalized patients. The most important point in preventing this occurrence is to identify these patients, and the patients who are at a high risk to develop malnutrition, and to provide them with the proper nutrition needs. Their nutrition needs can be met as oral nutrition, enteral feeding tube, or through the vein parenteral nutrition. The nurse who attends the patient, and who sees and knows the patient needs, has a very important role in identifying the nutrition status of the patient, and in the treatment of the malnourished patient. From the month of May till the month of October, 2017, 100 questionnaires were handed out to nurses, in hospital wards, in Sheba Medical Center. The questions in the distributed questionnaires were geared towards identifying the nurseâ??s knowledge and attitude in the perception of nutrition. Aim of the study is to check the attitude of the nurses to nutrition, and their involvement in the treatment of the malnourished patient and to understand the gaps in the nursesâ?? treatment. Role of nurse in the treatment of malnourished patient includes: identify the high risk patient for malnutrition, as well as the patient who is already malnourished, and to ask for consultation and proper treatment. In order to provide the nutritional services, we need to consider the followings: The availability of trained nurses, and the awareness of the high risk patient for malnutrition and follow-up on nutrition assessment, feeding the patient according to the availability of the attending nurse, and according to the head nurse policy. Barriers in the nutrition treatment includes: The availability of attending nurse to do the score MUST on the first 8 hours of hospitalization; the ability to choose the right diet to the right patient, and to verify that the patient gets this meal and; the different procedures and sickness during hospitalization, such as an operation, CT scan, depression, pain, stress. Data collected from the questionnaires: female nurses â?? 71%, male nurses â?? 29%, nurses with academic degrees â?? 91%, nurses with specialized training â?? 52% and, head nurses â?? 18%. 93% of the nurses think that the MUST score is the most important, but do not pay attention to feeding, weight the patient, documenting the amount of food the patient eat. Only 50% of the nurses thought that pleasant environment is important to the patient when they eat. Only 43% of the nurses thought that they should be involved in the nutrition status. Most of them can not estimate the percentage of malnourish patient. They do know the importance of food to recovery from illness. 29% of them does not feed at all, 18% feed every day, feeding can be on the three ways. The barriers in nutrition are connected to: knowledge attention, not talking and discussing nutrition subject. There is need of professional person in this field such as dietitian or doctor.

Biography :

Aviva Alagem Mizrahi is Registered Nurse at School of Nursing, Sheba Medical Center during 1985-1989; Midwifery course at Asaf Harofe Medical Center during 1989- 1990; Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Health Services at New England College and; Master of Public Administration in Healthcare at Clark University. She has done course in clinical teaching in nursing at Haifa University during 2000-2001 and nursing homes management course at Bar Ilan University during 2010-2012.