Nutritional Status, Culinary Knowledge and Skills of Undergraduate Dietetics Students in Ghana.

Abstract

Background: Dietitians are responsible for the dietary management of patients which involves the modification of meals/recipes and cooking methods. Dietitians are also responsible for training and supervision of hospital catering staff on the preparation of therapeutic meals. Dietitians must therefore possess adequate knowledge and skills in food preparation in order to successfully carry out their duties. Aim: To assess the culinary knowledge, skills and nutritional status of undergraduate dietetics students in University of Ghana (UG) and University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 155 students. Structured questionnaires were used to assess participants‟ culinary knowledge and skills and anthropometric measurements were taken to assess their nutritional status. Independent Sample T-test and ANOVA were used to compare knowledge scores of dietetics students by institutions, gender and academic level. The relationship between culinary knowledge scores and nutritional status of students was also analysed using linear regression. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results: Majority (66.8%) of the students were females. The mean age of all participants was 20.77 ± 2.00 years. The mean knowledge score for all participants was 6.44 ± 2.08. Compared to UG, students in UHAS had statistically higher mean culinary knowledge scores (p=0.010). Among gender, female participants had significant higher culinary scores than males (p= 0.025). Participants in the fourth year had the highest culinary knowledge means (6.48 ± 2.38) whilst students in first year had the lowest mean scores (5.89 ± 2.19). More than two- thirds (71.0%) of participants had normal BMI status whilst more than half (57.2%) had normal total body fat percentage levels. Furthermore, almost all participants (96.1%) had normal visceral fat levels. Conclusion: Findings of this study showed that dietetics students in UHAS had higher culinary knowledge scores than those in UG. Culinary knowledge scores of participants increased proportionally with the number of years spent in academic training. Majority of participants had normal BMI, total body fat percentage and visceral fat levels.