Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate importance and performance of dietitian's task at long term care hospitals foodservices in the Busan Kyongnam area. The research was performed through using questionnaires and conducted from June 11 to July 16, 2010 for 186 dietitians at 141 long-term care hospitals. Seventy-two percent of hospitals had two dietitians and 69% of them had a dietitian's office. Fifty-two percent of dietitians has worked for less than 2 years at long term care hospital, and 37.1% of them worked additional tasks. Seventy-three percent of hospitals conducted a therapeutic diet program and the therapeutic diets frequently provided were diabetic diet > tube feeding diet > dysphasia diet > sodium controlled diet. Mean score for the importance (4.36/5.00) and performance (3.91/5.00) of dietitian's tasks were significantly different (p < 0.001). The importance and performance grid showed that the purchase-inspection management and sanitation-safety management were high scores to the importance and performance (doing great area), menu-foodservice management and cooking-working management were low scores to the importance and high scores to the importance (overdone area), and nutrition management was low scores to the importance and performance (low priority). Forty-three percent of dietitians agreed with the needs for role separation between foodservice dietitian and clinical dietitian.

Keywords

• long term care hospital foodservice;
• dietitian' task;
• importance;
• performance