Nutrition Education in Primary Care Adult and Family Nurse Practitioner Programs.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Educating and training clinicians to deliver nutrition interventions is critical to improve population health. However, the adequacy of nutrition education within primary care adult and family nurse practitioner (ANP/FNP) curricula has not been addressed. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to describe faculty perceptions of nutrition education in ANP/FNP programs. METHODS: We used a cross-sectional design to gather data on nutrition education. The survey was administered to a convenience sample of faculty from the United States. RESULTS: Our response rate was 47.8% (N = 49). The mean ± SD hours of nutrition education was 14.4 ± 14.6. One-fourth of schools reported that their students received at least 25 hours of nutrition education. Most participants thought it was very or extremely important (75.6%) that their students become more educated about nutrition. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need and desire for more nutrition education within nursing graduate curricula. Novel strategies to implement nutrition education in nurse practitioner curriculum are needed.