REAP and WAVE: new tools to rapidly assess/discuss nutrition with patients

Dietary changes can be helpful in preventing or treating a variety of prevalent health problems. Physicians can be helpful in helping patients make positive dietary changes, be physically active and lose weight, but, for a variety of reasons, many physicians do little nutrition counseling. There is a need for brief, user-friendly tools to enable physicians to rapidly and accurately assess patients' diets and exercise habits as well as provide information to aid the physician in delivering effective nutrition counseling. The purpose of this paper is to discuss two new tools, WAVE and REAP, that have been developed by the Nutrition Academic Award to help physicians and other health care providers conduct nutrition assessment and counseling with their patients in a practical and effective manner. The WAVE acronym and tool is designed to encourage provider/patient dialogue about the pros and cons of the patients' current status related to Weight, Activity, Variety and Excess. The Rapid Eating and Activity Assessment for Patients (REAP) is a brief validated questionnaire that is designed to aid providers in performing a brief assessment of diet and physical activity. An accompanying Physician Key aids the provider in discussing the patient's answers and counseling them appropriately. REAP and WAVE can be helpful tools to facilitate nutrition assessment and counseling in the provider office. Depending on patients' health priorities and how much time is available, these tools can be used in a variety of ways to discuss nutrition with patients during a clinical encounter in 1-9 min.