Year

2020

Season

Summer

Paper Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Brooks College of Health

Degree Name

Doctor of Clinical Nutrition (DCN)

Department

Nutrition & Dietetics

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. Department of Nutrition & Dietetics

First Advisor

Dr. Lauri Wright

Abstract

Ghana, a middle-income country in West Africa, has long experienced high rates of malnutrition and is increasingly struggling with nutritional challenges from non-communicable diseases including overweight, obesity, hypertension and stroke. There is an inadequate number of trained Ghanaian nutrition professionals to meet the demands of providing nutrition care for the citizens of Ghana and those professionals providing nutrition care have limited opportunities for continuing education. This quasi-experimental prospective, single cohort pre-test/post-test research was conducted in Accra, Ghana in September 2019 to determine if providing a nutrition support workshop to Ghanaian nutrition professionals (dietitians, dietetic interns, dietetic students and nutritionists) would impact their confidence in nutrition support practice, satisfaction with their nutrition support knowledge and ability to apply nutrition support knowledge utilizing the Nutrition Care Process (NCP). Demographic and nutrition support questionnaires were self-administered by participants with data collected prior to the workshop and at the conclusion of the workshop. The nutrition support questionnaire was adapted from a questionnaire used by Persenius et al. Participants (n=76) reported they had a great extent of responsibility for providing nutrition support care (n=60, 85.7%). Participants’ confidence in their nutrition support skills (p=.000), satisfaction with their nutrition support knowledge (p=.000), nutrition support knowledge accuracy (p=.000) and ability to apply knowledge gains using the Nutrition Care Process (NCP, n=39, p=.000) improved significantly following the workshop. One-day intensive workshops are effective in meeting the educational needs of Ghanaian nutrition professionals and providing a platform from which to scale up nutrition in West Africa.

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