Date of Award

8-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College/School

College of Education and Human Services

Department/Program

Nutrition and Food Studies

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Amanda Birnbaum

Committee Member

Jennifer Urban

Committee Member

Doreen Liou

Abstract

Primary care practitioners (PCPs) have a role to play in the primary and secondary prevention of diet/weight-related chronic disease through nutrition assessment, education, counseling, and referral. Although PCPs tend to have positive attitudes about nutrition, many do not engage in nutrition related practice behaviors. In this research, it is assumed that improving PCPs’ current nutrition knowledge of and access to evolving, evidence-based information about nutrition will lead them to be more likely to engage in nutrition assessment, education, counseling, and appropriate referrals with the ultimate aim of positive patient outcomes. This research used concept mapping, a participatory, mixed methods approach to explore practitioners’ (n=14) and researchers’ (n=30) perspectives about the importance and feasibility of actions, tools, and resources that would facilitate the dissemination of evidence-based information about nutrition to primary care medical practitioners. Concept mapping uses similarity matrices, multidimensional scale modeling, and hierarchical clustering to analyze participant brainstorming, sorting, and rating data. This exploratory study found a gap between researchers’ and practitioners’ importance ratings for the brainstormed ideas, but a high correlation (r=.94, p=.000) between researchers’ and practitioners’ feasibility ratings for the ideas. The study also identified areas for potential future research and development based on X,Y (importance, feasibility) plots of the brainstormed ideas.

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Nutrition Commons

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