The nutrition knowledge level of nurses of Hubli and Dharwad cities of Karnataka

Nurses have a great contact with the hospitalized patients and play an important role in their nutritional management. The present investigation was carried out to assess the nutrition knowledge level of nurses from 5 private and equal number of government hospitals of Hubli and Dharwad cities of Karnataka. A total of 300 nurses (230 female and 70 male) were selected by purposive random sampling method. Nutrition knowledge was assessed through pre-structured questionnaire. More than half of the nurses had low (34%) and medium (26%) knowledge score. Nearly half the nurses (48.67%) had the knowledge score between 65 to 85 per cent. About 36.67 per cent had knowledge score between 45–65 per cent and very few had between 25–45 and >85 per cent (7.66 vs 7.00%). Chi-square results showed that there was highly significant association of knowledge level with age, monthly income and education level. However there was no significant association between the knowledge level and the experience in service among nurses. There is a need to improve the knowledge of nurses through nutrition education.