Factors Influencing Nurses' Behavior in Nutritional Care for Community-Dwelling Older Adults Before, During, and After Hospitalization: A Delphi Study

Background. To improve nutritional care for community-dwelling older adults before, during, and after hospitalization, factors influencing nurses' current behavior should be targeted. The aim of this study was to obtain expert consensus on which fac-tors influencing the behavior of hospital and home care nurses are most relevant, modifiable, and fea-sible to influence. Method. In a two-round Delphi study, nine pre-selected factors were rated by 26 ex-perts. Results. Eight factors were rated as relevant, modifiable, and feasible to influence: (1) lack of suf-ficient knowledge, (2) mainly neutral attitude, (3) low prioritization, (4) ambiguous motivation to routinely use guidelines and screening tools, (5) moderate awareness about risk factors, (6) lack of sense of in-volving informal caregivers, (7) ambiguous motiva-tion to follow education and training, and (8) strong focus on medical nutrition. Conclusion. The expert panel reached consensus on eight factors influencing nurses' current behavior. To enhance nutritional care to prevent malnutrition in older adults, strategies are needed for targeting these factors in nursing prac-tice, education, and research. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2022;53(12):545-556.]

Automated summary

This study obtained expert consensus on the factors influencing the behavior of hospital and home care nurses, which are relevant, modifiable, and feasible to influence. The factors identified include lack of sufficient knowledge, neutral attitude, low prioritization, ambiguous motivation to use guidelines and screening tools, moderate awareness about risk factors, lack of involvement of informal caregivers, ambiguous motivation to follow education and training, and a strong focus on medical nutrition.