Nurses' knowledge about malnutrition in older people: A multicenter cross-sectional study

Area of Science:

• Geriatric Medicine
• Nutritional Science
• Nursing Education

Background:

• Malnutrition affects a significant percentage of older adults in various healthcare settings (22% in hospitals, 17.5% in nursing homes, 8.7% in home care).
• Adequate knowledge of malnutrition among healthcare staff is crucial for effective risk identification and intervention in geriatric populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To translate and validate the Knowledge of Malnutrition-Geriatric (KoM-G) questionnaire into Italian (KoM-G ITA).
• To assess the malnutrition knowledge of registered nurses across different Italian healthcare settings (hospitals, nursing homes, home care, palliative care).

Main Methods:

• The KoM-G questionnaire underwent translation and validation, assessing content validity, internal consistency, and interrater reliability.
• A multicenter, cross-sectional study involved 511 registered nurses who completed the validated KoM-G ITA questionnaire.

Main Results:

• The KoM-G ITA questionnaire demonstrated excellent content validity, internal consistency, and good intrarater reliability.
• On average, 61.9% of the participating nurses answered the questions correctly, indicating a generally adequate level of knowledge.

Conclusions:

• The study suggests that nurses in Italy possess an adequate level of knowledge regarding malnutrition in older adults.
• Recommendations include the implementation of targeted training courses and management protocols to further improve nursing care for malnourished elderly patients.