Hungry for more: Australian medical students’ competence, attitudes and preferences towards nutrition education

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Bredhauer, J
Cone, S
Brown, L
Moseley, G
Wilson, A
Perlstein, R
Ball, L
Griffith University Author(s)
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2022
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Background: Inadequate nutrition education in medical training is a prevailing global challenge. This study assessed Australian medical students’ self-perceived competencies in nutrition and preferences regarding nutrition education in medical training. Methods: We conducted a national cross-sectional online survey between September 2019 and January 2020. Our survey collected sociodemographic characteristics and assessed nutrition competency according to a validated assessment tool. All Australian medical students aged over 18 were eligible to participate. Results: One hundred ninety-five medical students representing 20 Australian medical schools completed the survey and reported moderate nutrition knowledge (17·6 ± 4.1 out of 35, 50%) and skills (29.8 ± 7.6 out of 55, 54%). Students demonstrated positive attitudes towards nutrition training/education (35·9 ± 4.0 out of 40, 90%). Most medical students (n = 148, 72%) reported they had sought some form of nutrition education outside of their degree. Students showed preference for practical, evidence-based nutrition education that is integrated in and prioritised throughout medical training. Conclusions: Australian medical students express positive attitudes towards nutrition but report only low to moderate nutrition knowledge and skills. There is an opportunity to incorporate practical, regular nutrition learning activities into Australian medical curriculums to equip future doctors to adequately address non-communicable disease. Such initiatives are likely to be well received by students.

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BMC Medical Education

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22

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1

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© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

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Specialist studies in education

Culinary medicine

Medical education

NCDs

Nutrition

Public health

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Bredhauer, J; Cone, S; Brown, L; Moseley, G; Wilson, A; Perlstein, R; Ball, L, Hungry for more: Australian medical students’ competence, attitudes and preferences towards nutrition education, BMC Medical Education, 2022, 22 (1)

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