Abstract
Objectives: We examined the differences in experience, confidence and willingness to learn between public health nurses and registered dietitians who provide Specific Health Guidance. We aimed to assess and suggest improvements for their service.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was distributed to 1,758 public health nurses and registered dietitians who implement public health policy nationwide and provide Specific Health Guidance autonomously or with an agency. The anonymous self-report questionnaire was posted to participants. The participants were asked to respond to 49 questions about their experience, confidence, willingness to learn, and participation in training for health guidance. The responses from the 718 public health nurses and registered dietitians, who responded to the questionnaire (response rate: 40.8%), were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test, χ2 test and t-test.
Results: Experience was examined by 20 of the 49 questions. Registered dietitians had a higher percentage of responses that indicated “little experience”. For “planning and evaluation,” both groups reported that they had “little experience” with technology. The public health nurses reported that they had “no confidence” with respect to the 16 questions that examined “understanding the nutritional science of dietary therapy” and “providing and using guidelines”. Moreover, for the 19 questions about technology, public health nurses reported that they had “significant experience but no confidence” (p < 0.05).
Conclusions: Reports from public health nurses and managerial dietitians differed in terms of their experience, confidence and willingness to learn with respect to Specific Health Guidance techniques. Public health nurses reported having experience but lacked confidence with respect to more techniques.
