Knowledge and Attitudes of resident physicians in internal medicine and general surgery with respect to clinical nutrition in 5 universities of colombian south western and coffee region

Morales Bedoya; Juan Gabriel1; Gonzalez Correa; Clara Helena2

Knowledge and Attitudes of resident physicians in internal medicine and general surgery with respect to clinical nutrition in 5 universities of colombian south western and coffee region

Author(s): Morales Bedoya, Juan Gabriel1; Gonzalez Correa, Clara Helena2

Introduction: The nutritional status of patients plays a fundamental role in the evolution and prognosis of different conditions, and the knowledge and attitudes of physicians are a fundamental part of this process.

General objective: To characterize the knowledge and attitudes of resident physicians in internal medicine and general surgery in relation to clinical nutrition in 5 Universities of the southwest and the Colombian coffee axis and establish if their academic programs influence the results obtained.

Methodology: Cross-sectional descriptive observational study with the application of a survey that contains three modules: socio-demographic data, knowledge test on nutritional assessment and artificial nutrition and test of attitudes on Likert scales.

Results: A convenience sample of 70 was obtained being the majority of the male gender, residents of internal medicine and first and second year. The average of correct answers was 8/20 (95% CI) the female gender, the residents of 1 and 2 years of residence and the participants with less than 1 year of clinical experience obtained the best average of correct answers. In qualitative terms 50 obtained “low” qualification and 20 “regular” qualification. The variables studied did not show a statistically significant association in the final result of the knowledge test. The answers to the questions on attitudes showed a positive disposition in 55% of the cases with a degree of indifference that oscillates around 20%.

Discussion and conclusions: The knowledge in clinical nutrition of residents of internal medicine and general surgery of the universities of southwestern Colombia and the coffee region are very scarce. The positive attitude towards nutritional issues does not agree with the low results in the knowledge test. The academic programs did not influence the results obtained. These deficiencies should be corrected in order to improve the quality of care for hospitalized patients.