• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.220-235
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• 2015

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate how clinical nutrition services is provided at a long term care hospital in Korea and to investigate job satisfaction levels of the clinical dietitians. Methods: Survey questionnaire was sent to dietitians working at a long term care hospital in Korea. The participating hospitals (n=240) were randomly selected from 1,180 long- term care hospitals using a stratified sampling method. A total of 134 long term care hospital s and 223 dietitians completed the survey of clinical nutrition service s and job satisfaction questionnaires The job satisfaction questionnaire included 27 job satisfaction questions on task, stability vision, working conditions, and relationship areas. Results: The average nutritional screening rate was 17.9% and the rate of computerized nutritional screening system was 9.7% in the participating hospitals. Nutritional intervention rate was only 3.2% of all patients. KOIHA (Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation) accreditated hospitals showed only 50% performance rate of nutrition service evaluation area. This shows that after achieving KOIHA accredition, many hospitals do not emphasize the performance of nutritional services. The job satisfaction scores in all four areas ranged from 2/5 to 3/5, implying generally low job satisfaction level in hospital dietitians. Linear regression analysis results showed that the "hospital adequacy grade" type was a significant predictor of job satisfaction level for two areas (working conditions & relationship). Conclusions: There is a need to provide proper standardized clinical nutrition services as a primary treatment and we observed large variations in the quality of nutritional service s in long term care hospitals. Therefore, government and local hospitals have to work on implementing nutritional programs and policies for improved service and care.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.91-109
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• 2015

The present study was conducted to provide the basis for improvement of clinical nutrition services through development of job standards of clinical dietitian for the clinical nutrition therapy to cancer patients in hospitals. Developing A Curriculum (DACUM) method was used for job analysis and development of job standards for clinical dietitians for cancer care. Based on DACUM analysis, information about duties, tasks, and task elements of clinical dietitians for cancer care was collected. Developed job standards were applied to clinical nutrition care for cancer patients in hospitals for evaluation. Based on DACUM analysis, consultations from professionals, and field application tests, the final job standards were composed of four duties, 18 tasks, and 56 task elements. The duties consisted of nutritional assessment, nutrition diagnosis, nutrition intervention, and nutrition monitoring evaluation. For cancer nutrition care, 109 work activities were developed. They were composed of 75 basic and 34 recommended work activities. The application of developed job standards for clinical dietitians for cancer care at 10 hospitals showed a performance rate of 72.3%. In conclusion, job standards for clinical dietitians for cancer care developed in this study might be effectively used as guidelines for providing clinical nutrition services for cancer patients in hospitals.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.294-307
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• 2024

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Dietitians frequently use nutrition education tools to facilitate dietary counselling sessions. Nevertheless, these tools may require adaptation to keep pace with technological advancements. This study had a 2-fold purpose: first, to identify the types of nutrition education tools currently in use, identify their limitations, and explore dietitians' perspectives on the importance of these tools; second, to investigate the features that dietitians prefer in digital nutrition education tools. SUBJECTS/METHODS: A semi-structured face-to-face interview was conducted among 15 dietitians from selected public hospitals, primary care clinics, and teaching hospitals in Malaysia. Inductive thematic analysis of the responses was conducted using NVivo version 12 software. RESULTS: Most dietitians used physical education tools including the healthy plate model, pamphlets, food models, and flip charts. These tools were perceived as important as they facilitate the nutrition assessment process, deliver nutrition intervention, and are time efficient. However, dietitians described the current educational tools as impersonal, outdated, limited in availability due to financial constraints, unhandy, and difficult to visualise. Alternatively, they strongly favoured digital education tools that provided instant feedback, utilised an automated system, included a local food database, were user-friendly, developed by experts in the field, and seamlessly integrated into the healthcare system. CONCLUSION: Presently, although dietitians have a preference for digital educational tools, they heavily rely on physical nutrition education tools due to their availability despite the perception that these tools are outdated, impersonal, and inconvenient. Transitioning to digital dietary education tools could potentially address these issues.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.38-49
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• 2001

This study was designed to analyze the dietetic practitioner's job in the over 600-ed hospitals in korea and to assess their labor time spent and staffing need indices. The actual time spent and expected labor time spent on dietitians' activities were investigated and the proper dietic staffing needs in the hospitals was also calculated. A job analysis questionnaires were developed and mailed to 20 hospitals. Completed questionnaires were received form 12 hospitals for a response rate of 60%. The followings are summary of the results. 1. The jobs dietitians at the hospitals were classified into the following 7 areas, direct patient care, indirect patient care, therapeutic patient care, education & counseling, meeting & research, delay & movement, and administration & food services. 2. The actual time spent on dietetic practice was 48.6 hours and expected labor time spent was 99.2 hours, Therefore, the proper time required to conduct classified jobs was 2.1 times higher than the time spent. Especially, the time required for performing clinical nutrition services including direct patient care, indirect patient care, therapeutic patient care was significantly higher than the time needed. 3. The average times required for the direct patient care was 1334.6min, for the indirect patient care was 796.3min, for the therapeutic patient care was 1634.5min, for the education & counseling was 265.2min, for the meeting & research was 366.7min, for the delay & movement was 327.3min, and for the administration & food services was 1170min. The staffing need indices was 12.3. As a conclusion, the standardized job descriptions for the dietitian to carry out their job at the hospital should be established. And the clinical dietitians as nutrition professionals have to be recruited to provide systematically hospitalized patients with medical nutrition therapy at each hospital.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.194-204
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate school dietitians' satisfaction with and needs for School Meal Service Support Centers. A web-based on-line survey was conducted with 1,102 nutrition teachers or school dietitians using four School Meal Service Support Centers during the summer of 2011. The data from 578 respondents (52.5%), consisting of 165 (44.4%), 334 (53.4%), 41 (67.2%), and 38 (86.4%) dietitians using Seoul, Gyeonggi, Suncheon and Gyeongju centers, respectively, were analyzed. The main reason for using the centers was subsidies from local governments. The dietitians using the metropolitan centers, which were Seoul and Gyeonggi centers, tended to buy agricultural products through the centers only, and those using local centers, which were Suncehon and Gyeongju centers, bought those products from the private suppliers as well as from the centers. The dietitians' overall level of satisfaction with the centers was not high showing 3.3 out of 5 points; it was significantly associated with the operating system and services of the centers such as system efficiency, delivery accuracy, communication, and information provision rather than the agricultural products provided by the centers. The dietitians preferred joint operation of the centers by local governments and producers' groups. They wanted School Meal Service Support Centers to be evaluated every year. It was suggested that efforts should be made to improve the operation system and service of School Meal Service Support Centers for improving dietitians' satisfaction with the centers. In addition, an evaluation system for School Meal Service Support Centers should be implemented soon based on school dietitians' needs.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.536-552
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to develop a standardized job description for dietitians using the DACUM technique. To examine the validity of job description through DACUM, dietitians were surveyed relative to importance, performance, and difficulty. The survey was conducted April 1-30, 2014. A total of 217 questionnaires were used in the analysis. The final developed job description for dietitians included six duties, 38 tasks, and 210 task elements. DACUM's findings include six duties: nutrition management, food service operation management, hygiene safety management, community food and nutrition program management, organization management, and professionalism strengthening. There were 5.1 points regarding importance, 4.1 points regarding performance, 4.9 points regarding difficulty, and statistically significant differences (p<0.001). Dietitians responded that 'nutrition management' and 'hygiene safety management' were the most important. 'Hygiene and safety management' showed the highest performance, and 'community food and nutrition program management' and 'professionalism strengthening'' showed the highest difficulty. Thus, it is considered that the job analysis results can be used to evaluate and improve the subjects' training program. Dietitians' jobs are subject to various environmental changes, such as demographic changes, health care system changes, and the development of the food industry, and thus, should be reviewed and analyzed periodically.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.602-612
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate importance and performance of dietitian's task at long term care hospitals foodservices in the Busan Kyongnam area. The research was performed through using questionnaires and conducted from June 11 to July 16, 2010 for 186 dietitians at 141 long-term care hospitals. Seventy-two percent of hospitals had two dietitians and 69% of them had a dietitian's office. Fifty-two percent of dietitians has worked for less than 2 years at long term care hospital, and 37.1% of them worked additional tasks. Seventy-three percent of hospitals conducted a therapeutic diet program and the therapeutic diets frequently provided were diabetic diet > tube feeding diet > dysphasia diet > sodium controlled diet. Mean score for the importance (4.36/5.00) and performance (3.91/5.00) of dietitian's tasks were significantly different (p < 0.001). The importance and performance grid showed that the purchase-inspection management and sanitation-safety management were high scores to the importance and performance (doing great area), menu-foodservice management and cooking-working management were low scores to the importance and high scores to the importance (overdone area), and nutrition management was low scores to the importance and performance (low priority). Forty-three percent of dietitians agreed with the needs for role separation between foodservice dietitian and clinical dietitian.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 1980

A total of 35 hospitals throughout Korea were surveyed for the assessment of the educational function of dietitians. The current situation and the depth of practices were diagnosed in such areas as: 1. The continuing education for the hospital dietitians 2. The characteristics of patient consultation performed by the hospital dietitians 3. Systems and methods of patient instruction practiced by the dietitians, and 4. Prospectives in establishing the nutrition education center for the in-and out-patients. The major findings are: 1. Approximately half of the hospital dietitians feel positive about the practicality of their college education for the job. Extremely small number of them are on any kind of continuing education program 2) The monthly average of only 20 patients at one hospital receive diet consultation or nutrition education service from dietitians. The 50% of the consultation cases is taken up by the patients with diabetes and various circulartory diseases followed by the tube feedings, liver and renal diseases with less frequencies 3) Not even a single hospital has an office for the diet consultation and nutrition education for the in-or out-patients. Very few hospital dietetics have educational aids and/or any feedback system to evaluate the effect of the consultation. Charting is not practiced by most dietitians leaving no record of their contributions to the patient care. 4) Although the necessity of the nutrition education center in the hospital is strong1y recognized among dietitians the progress has been blocked by such obstacles as the poor system in the hospital administration in general, short in funds, lack of preparation in the dietetics and the lack of recognition both by the hospital administration and by the dietitian themselves.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.87-104
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• 2001

This study was conducted as a part of the project developing the standards of national board test for the dietitian's licence. The purpose of this study was to define the job description of dietitians, and to describe the task elements based on the detailed analysis of the dietitians' work. This study team established the research team which was composed of food and nutrition experts, 7 of registered dietitians and 3 of university professors. Draft job description form was made to fully explain the dietitians' task elements, process and sequence by the research team. Final job description form was confirmed after the validity of 576 task elements was reevaluated upon 4 point scale test based on the frequency, importance, and difficulty by 21 field registered dietitian by the study team. It was also confirmed by the university. This form was formated by following DACUM method which analyzed the job description containing duty, task and task elements. It was organized to include every dietitians' work and to describe the every detailed process of work. Duty was defined as the specific and independent work as a dietitian, and was composed of 17 parts, i.e 10 parts in food supply management area and 6 parts in nutritional care service area and self promotion area. Duties were also divided into 99 tasks containing the 576 detailed task elements to describe definite action, steps and decisions. Seventeen parts are following; menu planning, storage and inventory control, food production, meal service, waste management, sanitation, equipment and facility management, human resource management, financial management, nutrition assessment of life cycle, nutritional assessment of several disease, nutritional assessment in specific condition, medical nutrition therapy, nutritional education, public health nutrition and self promotion. If these protocols are properly performed and presented, they can provide the likelihood that dietetics professionals work as a primary contributors in promoting health care and preventing disease nationally.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.105-113
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• 2005

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the perception of importance about HACCP guidelines of dietitians. A questionnaire was developed to achieve research objectives and sent to random samples of 500 dietitians by a mail ; 418(84%) responses were analyzed. The respondents used three-point-scale to rate their perception of importance about HACCP from 1-"will be necessary" to 3-"very important". All statistical analyses were conducted using SAS package(version 8.12) for Windows. Means and standard deviations were computed for all variables. One-way analysis of variance and Duncan's multiple range test were used to assess differences in the perception of importance about HACCP guidelines among business and industry, health care and school foodservice managers. The study results were summarized as follows. Dietitians especially had lower perception of importance on the contents of Critical Control Points(CCPs), such as; adequate thawing methods and keeping records(1.95) and correct cleaning and sterilizing for raw vegetables and fruits(1.93). The rates of perception of importance about HACCP guidelines were significantly different from 19 of the 37 contents among business and industry, health care and school foodservice(p<.05 or p<.01 or p<.001). Generally, the item related to purchasing and inspection management had the highest perception level score and the item related to pre-preparation management had the lowest perception level score in foodservice production process(p<.001). Results indicate that there is a need for increased education of dietitians about HACCP principles and appropriate practices.