The home health aides' knowledge of nutritional needs for homebound elderly

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the nutrition knowledge of home health aides working with elderly homebound patients residing in a rural area. Twenty-seven home health aides identified nutrition services needed by their patients and completed a nutrition questionnaire to determine the aides' nutrition knowledge. Fifteen aides (experimental group) then attended a nutrition training session while the remaining 12 aides (control group) did not receive any nutrition education during the study. Both experimental and control groups showed an improvement 1n the aides' identification of their patients' need for nutrition services. This would indicate that factors other than the training session improved the aides' detection of nutritional needs in their patients. Home health aides can be utilized to identify patients in need of nutrition services. The author recommends further research to determine factors that improve aides' knowledge of nutritional risk in elderly homebound patients .