Exploring health professionals’ perceptions of how their own diet influences their self-efficacy in providing nutrition care

Abstract

Objective

Supporting health professionals’ dietary behaviours is important to their own health and may influence the quality of care they provide. Understanding health professionals’ perceptions on the experiences which have shaped their views on nutrition is important to inform interventions.

Design

A cross-sectional qualitative design utilised in depth interviews via telephone or videoconference. Health professionals with direct interaction with patients were recruited through the media channels of Australian national health professional associations. A semi-structured interview guide was used. Interview data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis. Twenty-two health professionals participated in the study including dietitians.

Results

Three themes emerged from the data: (1) Life experiences influence health professionals’ feelings of self-efficacy in providing nutrition care. (2) Learning through observation and role modelling occurred continually and shaped health professionals’ attitudes and beliefs on nutrition care. (3) Social interactions influenced self-efficacy through social persuasion and social pressure. The social environment played a role in both facilitating and/or hindering adoption of a dietary behaviour in their own lives.

Conclusions

Health professionals perceive their personal dietary experiences strongly influence their self-efficacy to provide nutrition care. Strategies which enable health professionals to improve their diets could lead to improvements in nutrition care. Creating socially supportive environments in the workplace warrant investigation to support health professionals to eat well and provide nutrition care to patients.

Keywords:

• Self-efficacy in nutrition care
• health professional
• diet
• nutrition

Authorship

JH led the ethical clearance application, data collection and data analysis. JP contributed to the data analysis, interpretation and presentation of results. LB conceptualised the study and contributed to the data analysis, interpretation and presentation of results. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript and approved the final version for submission.

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical standards disclosure

This study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki and all procedures involving research study participants were approved by the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (GU Ref No: 2020/150).

Financial support

JH’s work received $1000 financial support from Griffith University School of Allied Health Sciences. At the time of this project, LB’s salary was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellowship (APP1173496).