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Education and Teaching (Poster Session)

(P23-002-24) Assessing the Relationship Between Medical School Nutrition Education and Residents’ Confidence in Providing Nutrition Education to Patients

Monday, July 1, 2024
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM CT
Location: Poster Board 60

    Presenting Author(s)

  • SB

    Shauni Bobbs, DO, MS

    Internal Medicine Resident
    Naples Community Hospital
    Naples, Florida, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • TW

    Tracy Walsh, MD

    Naples Community Hospital
    Naples, Florida, United States

Disclosure(s):
Shauni Bobbs, DO, MS: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate if hours of nutrition education in medical school impacted Internal Medicine residents’ confidence in providing nutrition education to patients.

Methods: Thirty Naples Community Hospital (NCH) Internal Medicine residents participated in an anonymous survey regarding the number of nutrition education hours they received in medical school. Additionally, participants were asked to rank their confidence in providing nutrition education to patients on a scale from one to five, with one representing not confident at all and five representing completely confident. The surveys were available at various times in the resident outpatient clinic, during noon conferences, and electronically via the SurveyMonkey website. Data were analyzed with Jeffrey’s Amazing Statistics Program (JASP 2024, (Version 0.18.3)) utilizing a Mann-Whitney U test. The data were divided into two categories (zero to five hours of nutrition education and greater than or equal to six hours of nutrition education) for analysis.

Results: Among the 30 resident participants, 13 (43.3%) were part of the postgraduate year one (PGY-1) class, 10 (33.3%) were part of the PGY-2 class, and seven (23.3%) were part of the PGY-3 class. Seventeen residents reported zero to five hours, and 13 reported six or more hours of nutrition education. The mean number of medical school nutrition education hours was 11.3, with seven residents reporting zero hours (23.3%). No statistically significant difference was found when comparing the number of nutrition education hours residents had in medical school and the confidence level of providing nutrition education to patients (p = 0.534).

Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that Internal Medicine residents’ confidence in providing nutrition education to patients is unrelated to the number of nutrition education hours they received in medical school. Due to the small scale of this study, further investigation is required to assess this relationship.

Funding Sources: There were no external sources of funding received for this study and all work was completed as part of employment at NCH.