title: An educational model for improving diet counselling in primary care A case study of the creative use of doctors' own diet, their attitudes to it and to nutritional counselling of their patients with diabetes.
abstract: Aiming to improve the quality of diet recording and instruction in primary care, we developed a simple semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire for type 2 diabetic patients and had doctors record each other's diet habits with the same questionnaire. The analysis of the diet composition was given to the doctors who considered the educational model to be fun, instructive and thought-provoking. Doctors with a relatively unhealthy diet and a relatively high body weight tended to show dissatisfaction with their own diet, had poor self-assessed knowledge about nutrition, and even a wish to improve their own diet after having seen the result of the diet interview. The proportion of diabetic patients being treated with diet alone tended to decrease with their doctors' decreasing diet counselling skills, which indicates that doctors' attitudes may exert an effect at patient level.
authors: Research Unit and Department of General Practice, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. no@gpract.ku.dk
authors: Niels
authors: N
authors: de Fine Olivarius
authors: Birthe
authors: B
authors: Palmvig
authors: Anne Helms
authors: AH
authors: Andreasen
authors: Jonas Trøjgaard
authors: JT
authors: Thorgersen
authors: Christina
authors: C
authors: Hundrup
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000178:diet therapy*; D003927:Diet, Diabetic; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017145:Models, Educational; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric