Clinical Nutrition Services of a Long-term Care Hospital in Korea / 대한지역사회영양학회지

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate how clinical nutrition services is provided at a long term care hospital in Korea and to investigate job satisfaction levels of the clinical dietitians. METHODS: Survey questionnaire was sent to dietitians working at a long term care hospital in Korea. The participating hospitals (n=240) were randomly selected from 1,180 long- term care hospitals using a stratified sampling method. A total of 134 long term care hospital s and 223 dietitians completed the survey of clinical nutrition service s and job satisfaction questionnaires The job satisfaction questionnaire included 27 job satisfaction questions on task, stability vision, working conditions, and relationship areas. RESULTS: The average nutritional screening rate was 17.9% and the rate of computerized nutritional screening system was 9.7% in the participating hospitals. Nutritional intervention rate was only 3.2% of all patients. KOIHA (Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation) accreditated hospitals showed only 50% performance rate of nutrition service evaluation area. This shows that after achieving KOIHA accredition, many hospitals do not emphasize the performance of nutritional services. The job satisfaction scores in all four areas ranged from 2/5 to 3/5, implying generally low job satisfaction level in hospital dietitians. Linear regression analysis results showed that the "hospital adequacy grade" type was a significant predictor of job satisfaction level for two areas (working conditions & relationship). CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to provide proper standardized clinical nutrition services as a primary treatment and we observed large variations in the quality of nutritional service s in long term care hospitals. Therefore, government and local hospitals have to work on implementing nutritional programs and policies for improved service and care.