ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Nutritional education is one of the tasks of the family physicians. The aims of the Nutrimege study were to describe the frequency and modes of patients' nutritional education in family medicine, the characteristics of family physicians and patients involved, and its impact on the consultation length. METHODS: Cross-sectional study, performed with questionnaires mailed to sixty family physicians from the Val-de-Marne in December 2007. Each physician had to include the first ten patients seen during a given day. RESULTS: 45 family physicians participated, allowing the inclusion of 410 patients. The sample of family physicians was representative of the physicians in Val-de-Marne and in France. Nutritional counseling was delivered in 42.4% of consultations (95% CI: 37.6-47.2%). It mainly consisted in a dietary advice (90.2%), delivered orally (80.5%), at the initiative of the physician (81.6%). Collaborating with other healthcare professionals for nutritional purposes was rare (5.4%). Nutritional counseling was especially delivered for secondary prevention, to patients either aged 40 or older, obese, having one or more chronic conditions. The physicians who delivered nutritional counseling most were aged 45 and over, were practicing with free fees agreement, and had a specific practice. When nutritional counseling was delivered, the consultation lasted one minute more on average. CONCLUSION: The use of written tailored media (edited with appropriate computer tools), a better collaboration with other healthcare professionals, and the strengthening of the medical training on preventive medicine may help to improve the quality of patients' nutritional education process.
