The patient (Ms. A) was in her 90s, with stage III dementia, according to the degree of independence in daily living activities for older adult persons with dementia and the Mini Mental State Examination-Japanese (MMSE-J) score of the patient was 10. The patient was admitted for urinary tract infection treatment but gradually became debilitated. Intravenous fluid replacement was initiated. We observed that Ms. A was concerned with the intravenous drip line and touched it repeatedly. We thus concluded that she might potentially remove it. The nurse presented seven colored dressings to Ms. A and her family members. The family members reflected on the life of Ms. A and selected the red-colored dressing on her behalf. Once the red dressing was wrapped around the intravenous line insertion site, we observed no self-removal of the intravenous line.

Purpose: To clarify the relationships among nursing students’ interest in their eating habits, awareness of dietary guidelines, and salt intake.

Methods: We conducted an anonymous questionnaire survey among nursing students at junior college A. We tabulated the responses and examined the relationship among interest in dietary habits, awareness of dietary guidelines, and salt intake.

Results: A total of 154 nursing students were included in the analysis. We found a relationship between their interest in their diet and their awareness of the dietary guidelines, with significant differences in 12 of the 15 items in the dietary guidelines. We calculated an average salt checklist score of 11.95 ± 4.31. We found a significant difference between the scores of nursing students with high and low awareness of salt reduction.

Discussion: Our findings suggested that an increased interest in dietary habits will lead to greater awareness of dietary guidelines. The salt checklist can be used in nursing education to raise awareness of the behaviors that lead to high salt intake, which will encourage further reductions in salt intake.