Just say no to intensive care unit starvation: a nutrition education program for surgery residents

In 2009, the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM)/American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.) published "Guidelines for the Provision and Assessment of Nutrition Support Therapy in the Adult Critically Ill Patient." To improve our surgery residents' understanding of intensive care unit (ICU) nutrition, we developed a nutrition education program based on these guidelines. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess its effectiveness. We hypothesized that our nutrition education program would improve our residents' knowledge of ICU nutrition.

This was a prospective observational pilot study performed in the surgical ICU of an academic medical center. Based on the SCCM/A.S.P.E.N. nutrition guidelines, we developed a nutrition education program (lectures covering selected guidelines and interactive case studies). Pre- and posttesting were performed to assess short-term comprehension. Long-term retention was assessed 3 months after the initial education program. The primary outcome measure was the change in ICU nutrition knowledge. Significance was set at P < .05.

Over 12 months, 8 surgery residents completed the nutrition education program. Their mean age was 27.8 ± 1.2 years, and 50% were male. The mean test scores were as follows: pretest, 45% ± 9%; posttest, 81% ± 5%; and 3-month test, 65% ± 8%. The differences between the pretest and both posttest scores were significant (P < .01).

Residents have little understanding of ICU nutrition. This is confirmed by the pretest results of the current study. Our nutrition education program improved both short-term and long-term ICU nutrition knowledge of our surgery residents. Future studies should evaluate the effect such education has on the clinical outcomes of ICU patients.