General Physicians’ Viewpoints Towards Nutrition Course in the Medical School: a Cross-Sectional Study

Background and Purpose: Although nutrition has a very important role in individual and society’s health and disease, it has not yet received proper attention in the medical curricula. The objective of this study is to assess the opinions of general physician who worked at private offices in Khorramabadcity about nutrition course in Iranian medical schools.Methods: In this cross-sectional study the data were collected by posting a self-administrated questionnaire to all GPs who worked at private offices in Khorramabad city of Lorestan province in 2005. Participants were asked to state their opinions about each topic considering the following issues: the appropriate phase for introduction of the topic (in basic sciences, pathophysiology, or clinical training); need for learning it (low, moderate, high); and the time devoted to instruction of that topic (inadequate, appropriate, or excessive).GPs opinions were also surveyed to determinetheir reference for the topics not included in current nutrition course. Study data were processed by SPSS version 11 software and analyzed using descriptive and Chi-square statistics with a level of significance of less than 0.05. Results Most of participants believed that clinical teaching periods (clerkship and internship) are the appropriate stage for teaching disease- related or clinical aspects of nutrition. They also valued most of the topics listed in the questionnaire as important learning needs as well as 15 new nutrition topicsConclusions: Our results clearly indicate that there is a need to include clinical nutritional topics in the clinical training of medical students. New topics such as nutritional consideration in hypelipidemia, and heart disease should also be included in the nutrition education of physicians.