Nurses’ attitudes towards nutritional care and malnutrition in hospitalised older people: A Survey in the Liguria Region

Nurses’ attitudes towards nutritional care and malnutrition in hospitalised older people: A Survey in the Liguria Region

Aim: Evaluate nurses’ attitudes towards nutritional assistance in elderly hospitalized individuals, using the scale "The Staff Attitudes To Nutritional Geriatric Nursing Care Scale (SANN-G Scale)", recently validated in Italian. Methods: A descriptive survey was carried out, involving all head nurses and nurses of wards within University Hospital San Martino Hospital in Genoa and ASL3 Genovese Villa Scassi. A comparison was carried out using the Kruscall-Wallis test between wards, in order to determine whether there were significant differences in attitudes with respect to nutritional assistance. Results were compared between individuals who had follow a lecture on nutritional assistance and those who had not, using the test Mann Whitney. Results: 110 questionnaires were delivered of these 103 were filled in (94%). Only 26% of the sample shows to have a strong positive attitude with respect nutritional assistance in elderly people. No significant differences were found either between wards and the other or between those who nurse had lecturer and those who have not. Conclusions: The study revealed a substantial negative attitude with respect to nutritional assitance and malnutrition in the elderly, confirming that aspects related to nutrition of the elderly are not properly taken into account in comparison to other nursing care activities. Our results are similar to those of the internationl literature. There is therefore a need also in Italy to increase awareness of professionals on these issues.

Key words: Attitude of Health Personnel, nutritional status, geriatrics, malnutrition, nursing staff, dietetics