[Relevance of nutrition knowledge on clinical practice: medical opinion survey]

Although previous studies show that physicians generally agree that nutrition knowledge is important for their daily clinical practice, several other studies report their poor knowledge of the subject. One of the strongest reasons given for this is the non-incorporation of Nutrition as a compulsory subject for the medical sciences degree. Dietary counselling and assessment of the patients' nutritional status don't seem to be systematic. The aim of this study is to asses how relevant physicians consider Nutrition to be in the successful running of a good practice. The study was undertaken at the general hospital of Vila Real/Peso da Régua (CHVR/PR) by distribution of a self- administered questionnaire to 153 of the physicians of the clinical body. Mean values were compared with the Student's t test and proportions with the Chi-square test. Of the 153 physicians, 108 replies were received (70,6%). Of these 108 replies, 53,3% consider nutrition knowledge important although 29,6% state their knowledge is poor. More than half say that Clinical Nutrition should be a compulsory subject of the Medical Sciences syllabus, and 99,1% deem it important to assess the patient's nutritional status. About 95% stated they provided written or verbal nutritional guidance, and most of the physicians had already sought the assistance of a nutritionist. This study shows that the clinical body of the CHVR/PR is aware of the importance nutrition knowledge has in their daily practice. It must be noted, though, that although almost one third of the physicians rate their nutrition knowledge poor, most of them provide nutritional guidance to their patients.