• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.383-396
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the inpatients' perception of therapeutic-diets and of explanation about those diets provided by hospitals and satisfaction on therapeutic-diets at hospitals in Busan. The subjects consisted of 155 inpatients at five hospitals, which all had over 400 beds. The research was performed through the interviewing process using questionnaires. Seventy five percent of patients had received an explanation for their therapeutic-diet and 57.4% of respondents were given a manual that explained the reason for the therapeutic-diet. The professionals who explained the therapeutic-diet was 61.7% dietitians and 25.6% doctors. 59.4% of the patients considered the dietitian to be suitable for explaining the diet and 25.6% patients believed the doctor to be suitable for explaining the diet. In terms of the patients' perception of the therapeutic-diet explanation, 74.5% of the patients understood very well, 78.9% of them perceived this explanation as very important, and 67.5% of them were satisfied. On a scale of 5.00 for therapeutic-diet satisfaction, the average scores were 2.95 for meal characteristics and 3.06 for service characteristics. The items that scored low in therapeutic-diet satisfaction were taste, seasoning and appearance of meals, provision of selective menu and consideration of personal preference. In terms of the perception of understanding the therapeutic-diet, patients who were provided a manual and an explanation gave high scores to 'taste', 'variety of diet', 'meeting opportunity with dietitians', and 'prompt dealing with meal complications'. There was a significant (p<0.05) positive correlation between satisfaction for the explanation of the therapeutic-diet and the degree of perceived benefits of the explanation to the nutrition-management and the satisfaction on the therapeutic-diet satisfaction. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that hospitals should increase support for explaining the therapeutic-diet by dietitians and develop menus based on the patients' preference and the taste of the meal.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.1305-1312
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception and satisfaction on the nutrition counseling service for patients consuming a therapeutic diet at hospitals in Busan. The subjects were 153 inpatients at five hospitals with over 400 beds each. The research was performed through the interviewing process using questionnaires conducted from January to February, 2008. In a total of 88 patients, 57.5% had experienced nutrition counseling and were through the motives of counseling with doctors 64.2% and themselves 29.3% of the patients. In the method of nutrition counseling, 58% of the patients had an individual counseling. In the patients' perception on the nutrition counseling, 75.0% of the patients understood very well, 83.0% of them perceived the explanation as very important, 79.5% were very satisfied and 78.7% were helped in nutrition-management. On a scale of 5.00 for the nutrition counseling satisfaction, the average scores were 3.80 for 'explanation of knowledge', 3.71 for 'cognitive communication skills', 4.05 for 'effective communication skills' and 3.60 for 'facilitation skills'. The items of low scores in the nutrition counseling satisfaction were 'follow up diet-therapy after discharge', 'providing to personalized nutrition information', 'presentation of specific menu' and 'methods of menu planning'. There were significant (p<0.01) positive correlation between perception and satisfaction on the nutrition counseling. Therefore, it was suggested that dietitians increase the patients' satisfaction on the nutrition counseling with developing the model based on the patient-centered counseling.