Acquisition behaviours for nutrition-related information based on a health promotion model for older adults in a long-term care facility.
Jing Liu, Huiping Li, Ying Xie and 5 others
PMID 37344968WHAT IT FOUND
Residents in a Chinese long-term care facility sought diet advice from TV, newspapers, tablets and peers.
They found memory loss, unreliable sources and no systematic teaching made learning hard, but some changed water and food choices.
Key findings
01Residents obtained nutrition information from newspapers, television, tablet messages and conversations with relatives or friends.
02They said declining memory, no systematic books or lectures, and inconsistent information quality made it hard to learn.
03Some reported changing habits after learning, such as drinking warm water at night and eating eggs, milk, yogurt and nuts daily.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It was done in one long-term care facility in Chongqing, China, so it may not apply to other countries or provinces. Only 16 residents completed interviews, and they were very old, with a mean age of 86.19 years, so younger older adults and residents with different abilities may not be represented. Participants were chosen because they could communicate and had experience seeking nutrition information, not randomly, so they may not represent all residents. Residents may have given answers they thought were socially acceptable or favourable to the researchers. Memory problems and inconsistent answers among older adults could affect reliability. The study was conducted during the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic, which may have changed usual information-seeking and prior behaviours. This was a qualitative study of reported experiences, not an intervention trial, so it does not show that nutrition information improved health outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no commercial or financial relationships that could be a conflict of interest. Funding was from Chongqing Medical University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported behaviour changes as proof that nutrition advice works. The study described what 16 residents said they had learned and done; it did not compare groups or measure health outcomes.