ABSTRACT
This study was undertaken to identify medical staffs perception about nutrition care and dietitian's role in hospitals. Questionnaires were sent to 874 medical staffa at 50 general hospials size over 100 beds, located in Seoul and Pusan, A total of 649(74.3%) of medical staffs returned questionnaries from 47 general hospitals. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. 1. 89.6% if educak stffs responded that they required the help of the dietitian when the patients needed the nutrition acre and also most of them(87.0%) held positive perceptions abuot the necessity of the nutrition support team. 2. When the medical staffs prescribed the special diet of the patients' nutrition care, 90.0% of them preferred that diet would be order after consulting with dietitian. 3. Half of the medical staffs(52.1%) responded that they were scarced of the knowledge about the clinical mutrition and then 66.4% of them recognized the need of nutrition education at the medical school. 4. The medical staffs responded that dietitian must have the knowledge abuot food, nutrition and medical science(52.5%) and the competence of discussion with medical staffs about nutrition the patients(30.8%).