Bahadır Osman Bozkırlı1, Rıza Haldun Gündoğdu2, Soner Akbaba2, Turgay Sayın2, Pamir Eren Ersoy3

1Department of General Surgery, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
2Department of General Surgery, Ankara Atatürk Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
3Department of General Surgery, Güven Hospital, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract

Objective: Although many surgical patients face postoperative problems due to a poor nutritional status, there is evidence that many cases of malnutrition still go unnoticed and untreated in surgical wards. This study aims to define the current attitudes of surgeons toward nutritional screening and support.
Material and Methods: A questionnaire with 13 questions was e-mailed to 1500 surgeons. Cross-queries were made over the responses.
Results: The response rate was 20.9%. Most of the respondents (89.5%) implemented nutritional screening. However, only 24.6% of these surgeons screened every patient for malnutrition. The time to initiate nutritional support varied among respondents, and only 25.5% started nutritional support early enough prior to surgery. Only 9.9% of respondents implemented evidence based practices for preoperative fasting, and 21.2% preferred immunonutrition products for patients undergoing major abdominal surgery for cancer. The responses of surgeons, who participated in at least one scientific meeting on nutrition per year, were more coherent with the nutrition guidelines.
Conclusions: The results of this study reveal that the awareness and knowledge of clinical nutrition need improving amongst surgeons. To increase this awareness and knowledge, continuous learning throughout their career seems essential.

Keywords: Surgeon, malnutrition, nutritional screening, nutrition support, clinical nutrition, awareness

This study was presented at the XVI. Annual Meeting of the European Society of Surgery, 22-24 November 2012, İstanbul, Turkey.

Cite this paper as: Bozkırlı BO, Gündoğdu RH, Akbaba S, Sayın T, Ersoy PE. Surgeons’ approach toward clinical nutrition: A survey-based study. Turk J Surg 2017; 33: 147-152.


 

Ethics Committee Approval

Authors declared that the research was conducted according to the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects” (amended in October 2013).

Peer Review

Externally peer-reviewed.

Author Contributions

Concept - B.O.B., R.H.G.; Design - B.O.B., S.A., T.S., P.E.E.; Supervision - R.H.G.; Resource - R.H.G., B.O.B., P.E.E.; Materials - R.H.G., B.O.B., P.E.E.; Data Collection and/or Processing - B.O.B., S.A., T.S.; Analysis and/or Interpretation - B.O.B., R.H.G., P.E.E.; Literature Search - B.O.B., S.A., T.S.; Writing - Manuscript - B.O.B., S.A., T.S.; Critical Reviews - R.H.G., P.E.E.

Conflict of Interest

No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Financial Disclosure

The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.

Acknowledgments

The authors kindly thank Jale Karakaya, PhD from Hacettepe University, Department of Biostatistics, for the help she provided in statistical calculations.