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Where is the nutrition? Content analysis of learning objectives within tertiary medicine and health degree programs
Mackenzie G Derry1, Lauren Ball1,2, Breanna Lepre1,2
1School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Background:
Poor diet is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally. Given their frequent engagement with the community, medical and healthcare professionals can support improved dietary behaviours, as key brokers of nutritional knowledge. Yet, medical and healthcare professionals report receiving suboptimal nutrition education to support practice.
Objective:
This project aimed to identify the nutrition education content provided across tertiary medicine and health degree programmes at an Australian university.
Methods:
A list of programmes and core courses was compiled using publicly available information in 2023. Learning objectives of core courses were compared against a Nutrition Competency Framework for Australian Medical Training to identify the nutrition education provided.
Results:
A total of 13 programmes and 176 core courses were included. No programme made reference to all competencies from the Nutrition Competency Framework for Medicine. The Master of Dietetics Studies programme made the greatest number of references to nutrition (n=39), followed by the Bachelor of Physiotherapy (Hons) (n=36) and the Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery (n=31). The Master of Organisational Psychology programme made the least number of references to nutrition (n=2), followed by the Master of Psychology (n=5) and Master of Clinical Psychology (n=8). Programmes most frequently included foundational (knowledge-based) nutrition competencies (n=103, 51%), with limited application to clinical practice.
Conclusions:
There is a need for increased skills-based nutrition education in medicine and health degree programmes to support the translation of knowledge to future practice. Interprofessional competencies provide an opportunity for synergy across programmes.
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