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Clinical nutrition

Factors associated with the practice of nursing staff sharing information about patients’ nutritional status with their colleagues in hospitals

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 72, pages 112–116 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Nursing staff have an important role in patients’ nutritional care. The aim of this study was to demonstrate how the practice of sharing a patient’s nutritional status with colleagues was affected by the nursing staff’s attitude, knowledge and their priority to provide nutritional care.

Subjects/Methods:

The participants were 492 nursing staff. We obtained participants’ demographic data, the practice of sharing patients’ nutritional information and information about participants’ knowledge, attitude and priority of providing nutritional care by the questionnaire. We performed partial correlation analyses and linear regression analyses to describe the relationship between the total scores of the practice of sharing patients’ nutritional information based on their knowledge, attitude and priority to provide nutritional care.

Results:

Among the 492 participants, 396 nursing staff (80.5%) completed the questionnaire and were included in analyses. Mean±s.d. of total score of the 396 participants was 8.4±3.1. Nursing staff shared information when they had a high nutritional knowledge (r=0.36, P<0.01) and attitude (r=0.13, P<0.05); however, their correlation coefficients were low. In the linear regression analyses, job categories (β=−0.28, P<0.01), knowledge (β=0.33, P<0.01) and attitude (β=0.10, P<0.05) were independently associated with the practice of sharing information. Nursing staff’s priority to provide nutritional care practice was not significantly associated with the practice of sharing information.

Conclusions:

Knowledge and attitude were independently associated with the practice of sharing patients’ nutrition information with colleagues, regardless of their priority to provide nutritional care. An effective approach should be taken to improve the practice of providing nutritional care practice.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Hiroko Fujita and the clinical staff for participating in this study.

Author contributions

YK, YT, RA, MS and KF devised the project. YK and HF carried out the data collection. YK carried out the data analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors critically appraised and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan

    Y Kawasaki & Y Tamaura

  2. Natural Science Division, Faculty of Core Research, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan

    R Akamatsu

  3. Ryokufuso Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

    M Sakai

  4. Department of Nutrition, Ryokufuso Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

    K Fujiwara

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  1. Y Kawasaki
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  2. Y Tamaura
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  3. R Akamatsu
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  4. M Sakai
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to R Akamatsu.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Kawasaki, Y., Tamaura, Y., Akamatsu, R. et al. Factors associated with the practice of nursing staff sharing information about patients’ nutritional status with their colleagues in hospitals. Eur J Clin Nutr 72, 112–116 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2017.137

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2017.137

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