title: [Difficulties in ensuring a healthy diet among primary health care users and associated factors].
abstract: This is a straightforward cross-sectional study of health services to assess the prevalence of perception of difficulties in ensuring a healthy diet, associated factors and respective motives among a sample of 1,246 adult and elderly primary care users. The prevalence of perception of difficulties was 31.1% (95% CI 28.5-33.6) and associated factors were female gender (PR = 1.69; 95% CI 1.28-2.25), adulthood (PR = 1.33; 95% CI 1.11-1.59), income, with the most marked effect in the highest quintile (PR = 0.63; 95% CI 0.47-0.83), a higher number of self-reported chronic diseases (PR = 1.31; 95% CI 1.03-1.67), food insecurity (PR = 2.28; 95% CI 1.93-2.69), not receiving food guidance (PR = 0.75; 95% CI 0.63 to 0.89) and not reading food labels (PR = 1.42; 95% CI 1.08-1.86). Among those who had difficulties, the reasons mentioned were high cost of foods considered to be healthy (57.6%), insufficient willpower (49.4%), need to give up food considered unhealthy (41.6%), lack of time (35.7%) and insufficient knowledge (31.3%). The results show the importance of the awareness of health professionals about the difficulties of users and the need for adequate actions to promote a healthy diet in order to avoid standard patient care procedures.
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Passo Fundo, RS, Brasil, ivanaloraine@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ivana Loraine
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Lindemann
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Nutrição, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Riceli Rodeghiero
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Medicina, FURG, Rio Grande, RS, Brasil.
authors.forename: Raúl Andres
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Mendoza-Sassi
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D000072001:Diet, Healthy; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care