This issue of Topics in Clinical Nutrition provides a collection of articles highlighting dietary diversity (DD) in children, nutrition support practices related to enteral and parenteral nutrition, weight documentation practices, as well as the influence of nutrition training of health professionals and pediatric dentists.
Harmanc[latin dotless i]oglu and Kabaran of Turkey conducted a cross-sectional study to assess the relationship of food fussiness with DD, eating behaviors, and parental feeding practices in 314 preschoolers aged 3-5 years. Food fussiness scores were negatively correlated with DD and positively correlated with parental emotional feeding and strictly controlled feeding identifying an association between food fussiness and parent-child interactions.
Amirkhizi et al of Iran conducted a cross-sectional study using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire to evaluate the association of DD with growth failure in 605 Iranian children aged 7-12 years. A significant inverse trend was observed between DD and stunting and underweight suggesting a relationship between DD and growth failure.
Esme et al of Turkey evaluated the effect of the support of twice weekly home visits by a competent home infusion nurse on catheter-related infections in 17 adults receiving home parenteral nutrition. The rate of catheter-associated infections was found to be 1.23 per 1000 catheter days which was improved from a previous rate and QoL scores remained stable.
Lee et al of South Korea surveyed 224 staff nurses working in 3 university hospital intensive care units to assess enteral nutrition (EN) practices based upon Korean guidelines for EN nursing. The existence of hospital guidelines and department protocols and greater awareness of EN was associated with improved practice.
Duan et al of China conducted a retrospective study to evaluate factors associated with feeding intolerance (FI) in 302 adult patients receiving EN post liver transplant. Independent risk factors of FI included EN infusion rate, length of time to initiate EN, mechanical ventilation, sedative use, and intraoperative fluid balance. Higher EN rates and initiating after 48 hours post-operatively were associated with FI development.
Ballew et al of North Carolina conducted a retrospective analysis of 122 medical records assessing 5 units of a single rural medical center over a 5-week period to assess clinical staff compliance in documenting patient weights. A total of 122 records were evaluated and weights were documented 91.2% of the time with predominately objective methods such as a standing or bed scale (77.9%) over subjective methods such as clinician estimated or patient-reported (13.9%).
Catalan et al of Spain provided a cross-sectional descriptive question-based survey to 95 health care professionals (HCP) to assess eating habits, culinary skills, and promotion of habits. HCPs' previous nutrition training was associated with improved eating habits and providing better nutrition advice to patients. In addition, the better the eating habits and culinary skills of the HCPs, the more confident they were in counseling patients.
Leung et al of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry of New York University College of Dentistry surveyed 44 alumni of the post graduate pediatric dental program to assess the impact of interprofessional education (IPE) with dietetic interns during their training. A majority (84%) reported that that the information learned through IPE was relevant to their practice; 90% agreed pediatric dental visits should include nutrition counseling; and 98% included dietary questions as a part of their examination.
Thank you for your support of Topics in Clinical Nutrition. Thank you especially to our reviewers who have generously shared their time and expertise to provide peer review of submitted manuscripts. We are recognizing these individuals in our "Thanks to the Reviewers" section.
-Kelly Kane, MS, RD, CNSC
Editor
Topics in Clinical Nutrition