Determination the attitude toward the nutritional assessment, the level of knowledge of nutritional care and the perceived nutritional care quality among nurses

Nutrition is an important factor that is known to affect quality and safety in patient care. As such, it is important to provide patients with the necessary nutritional support and care, n and it is nurses that are the most important team member of the nutritional care process. In this descriptive study, conducted with 590 nurses between March 2019 and June 2019 at a state and a university hospital in the Afyonkarahisar province of Turkey, we evaluate the attitudes of nurses toward the importance of nutritional assessment, their level of knowledge of nutritional care, and the nurse-perceived quality of nutritional care. The study data was collected using the Nurse Information Form and the Questionnaire for Evaluating the Importance of Nutritional Assessment, the Level of Nutritional Care Knowledge and the Perceived Quality of Care among Nurses. The study data was analyzed with descriptive statistics, an independent samples t-test, a one-way analysis of variance and Pearson correlations using SPSS version 22.0 software. The mean score was 23.41±2.85 for the nurses' attitudes toward the importance of nutritional assessment, 25.95±3.45 for the level of knowledge of nutritional care among nurses, and 33.70±5.51 for the nurse-perceived quality of nutritional care. The nurses' attitude scores differed significantly by training on nutritional support and their clinic; the knowledge scores differed significantly among the nurses based on their institution and educational level; and the nurses' perceived nutritional care quality scores differed significantly by gender, their institution and access to training in nutritional support (p<0.05). Furthermore, there was a weak yet significant correlation between the mean scores for the attitudes toward the importance of nutritional assessment and the mean scores for the level of knowledge of nutritional care (r=0.102; p= 0.013); between the mean scores for attitudes toward the importance of nutritional assessment and the mean scores for the perceived quality of nutritional care (r=0.309; p= 0.000); and between the mean scores for the level of knowledge on nutritional care and the mean scores for the perceived quality of nutritional care (r=0.090; p= 0.028). It can be concluded from this study that nurses have a positive attitude toward the importance of nutritional assessment; however, they lack a sufficient level of knowledge in nutritional care, and do not evaluate the quality of care provided to patients at their clinics as sufficiently favorable. Keywords: Nutrition, Nutritional Assessment, Nutritional Care, Nurse