How Medical Students' Behaviors and Attitudes affect the Impact of a Brief Curriculum on Nutrition Counseling

Objective: To evaluate a nutrition curriculum and explore the influence of medical students' own nutrition practices on its impact. Methods: An anonymous survey was given to first-year medical students attending a required course immediately prior to and 2 weeks after a 2-hour interactive nutrition curriculum intervention in a large private urban medical school in New York, New York. Main outcomes included self-reported nutrition counseling confidence, ability to assess diet, and nutrition knowledge measured using 4-point Likert scales. Results: One hundred eleven students completed surveys pre-curriculum (69%) and 121 completed them post-curriculum (75%). The authors found overall pre-post differences in dietary assessment ability (2.65 vs 3.05, "P" less than 0.001) and counseling confidence (1.86 vs 2.22, "P" less than 0.001). In addition to the curricular impact, students' nutrition-related behaviors and attitudes were positively associated with outcomes. Conclusions and Implications: A nutrition curriculum for medical students improves students' nutrition counseling-related confidence, knowledge, and skills even when controlling for personal nutrition-related behaviors. (Contains 3 tables.)