To provide data for improvement of postgraduate education, we investigated the achievement of practical expertise by using 58 competency self-measurement items and rating them on a scale of 1 to 5 in 3,055 registered dietitians( RDs) who were members of Japan Dietetic Association and have a maximum of 10 years' experience. Approximately half of the participants were affiliated with hospitals. The overall participants obtained high scores for motivation, attitude, food poisoning, and treatment of personal data;however, they obtained low scores for public nutrition (epidemiology) and research. The RDs who were educated under the former curriculum( n=787, 91.8% had 5 or more years of experience as RDs or dietitians) obtained the highest scores in 39 of 58 items when compared to the RDs who were educated under the later curriculum, which started in 2002 (RDs-later, n=1,702, 37 . 5%) or the non-graduate RDs (n=530, 83 . 7%). RDs-later showed significantly higher scores in 4 items;elementary competencies (motivation and attitude), general competency (utilization of theory and model of behavioral science), and occupational competency (formulation of medical records based on SOAP). These results raise the possibility that the competency achievement may be associated with years of experience and educational curriculum.

View full abstract