Impact of nutrition education on nutritional knowledge and intentions towards nutritional counselling in Dutch medical students: an intervention study.

Abstract

Management of diet-related chronic diseases may benefit from improved nutrition education of medical students. This study aims to investigate the effects of a nutrition education course on nutritional knowledge and intentions towards nutritional counselling in Dutch medical students. This is a pre-post intervention study with a comparison group. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires on nutritional knowledge and intentions towards nutritional counselling. In total, 118 medical students (64.4% undergraduate, 73.2% women) were recruited from two medical schools in the Netherlands (n=66 intervention group, n=52 comparison group). The intervention group completed a 25-hour course in nutritional counselling (the Students Experienced in Lifestyle and Food (SELF) course) in addition to the standard medical curriculum. The comparison group followed the standard medical curriculum. Self-reported nutritional knowledge and intentions towards nutritional counselling, including attitude, self-efficacy and social support. Nutritional knowledge (B: 2.42, 95% CI 1.81 to 3.02), attitude in men (B: 0.50, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.87) and self-efficacy (B: 0.78, 95% CI 0.62 to 0.95) significantly increased in the intervention group compared with the comparison group. No significant differences were found for social support (B: 0.20, 95% CI -0.02 to 0.43) and attitude in women (B: 0.08, 95% CI -0.24 to 0.31) between the two groups. The SELF course increased medical students' nutritional knowledge and stimulated their intentions towards nutritional counselling. Future research is needed to evaluate the long-term impact of nutrition education interventions on physician practice patterns and patient outcomes.