Community nurses' awareness of nutrition in older adults

Abstract

This study sought to explore community nurses' awareness of older adults' nutritional status. A descriptive non-experimental design, incorporating a mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches was adopted. The study involved a simple random sample of fifteen participants. A questionnaire was constructed to collect data from nurses working in the community. A response rate of 100% was obtained. Findings indicate that community nurses are aware of nutrition in the older adults. Community nurses' awareness proved to be correct whilst the actions taken by them indicated that they lack certain knowledge as regards to screening older adults for malnutrition. Some of the proposed recommendations put forwards following completion of this research project include educational sessions for community nurses by a nutritionist in order to understand more nutrition and ways how they can make the diet of the older adult healthier to prevent malnourishment. Owing to the fact that this was the researcher's first research project, and the small sample size, this study suffers from a number of limitations. On the other hand, the fact that this study fills a gap in the literature since no other study was found on Community nurses' awareness of nutrition in older adults, is considered as a strength which helped in exploring this field of study.