Survey Of Nutrition Instructors’ Viewpoints Toward Nutrition Education In Medical Schools

Background: Although nutrition has a very important role in individual and society’s health and disease, it has not yet received proper attention in the curriculum of medical schools.Objective: To assess the opinions of nutrition instructors in medical schools and universities about nutrition education.Methods: In this descriptive survey, a questionnaire was prepared and sent to all nutrition instructors and they were asked to fill the questionnaire and send it back. Statistical analysis was performed on received answers.Results: Almost all instructors believed that nutrition education is not satisfactory in medical schools. They also announced that the physicians’ ability in screening nutritional diseases, diagnosing patients’ nutritional problems, presenting nutritional guidelines to their patients, providing useful nutritional guidelines to the healthy population, and providing nutritional consultation to their patients is restricted. The graduates are also not familiar with specific nutritional cares for each disease.Conclusion: The results show that nutrition education is not enough in our country. It seems that horizontal and vertical integration of nutrition education in medical curriculum can be an effective way to increase physicians’ skills in nutrition.