Aconselhamento dietético: intervenção de educação alimentar e nutricional em unidade de nutrição clínica

Abstract

Dietary counseling can be used as an intervention implement for food and nutritional education in order to set up better health conditions and allow that the individual face their food challenges, within their reality or social and cultural condition. The objective of this work was to perform a health and nutritional education by the dietary counseling in adults and elderly patients' care living with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in HU-UFGD. A field study with a qualitative approach was performed, and the sample was obtained by the convenience method. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee with human beings and by the opinion number 1,410,844. Data collection was fulfilled from June to December 2016, based on a semi-structured interview from the dietary advice proposed by BOOG (2013). The outset was at the medical clinic of HU-UFGD, while the patients were hospitalized. The other interviews were taken at the UFGD Metabolic Syndrome Outpatient Clinic and at the patients' home. These interviews were recorded and transcribed, and data analysis was performed through Content Analysis, proposed by Bardin (2006). In general, the interviewees emphasized that the relationship with the professional influences negatively or positively the adherence to care. Besides, another aspect is that although they are often unaware of the severity of the disease, they are awareness of that they must take care with the diet, and that the consumption of a large number of foods, mainly simple carbohydrates, was a negative factor for the prognosis of disease. Patients recognized that personal difficulty in making changes in their eating and lifestyle habits cause guilt and fear feelings. It was noted that family can occupy a motivating position, being indifferent or discredit to the patient and its ability to make correct choices in food. It has been explicit at the accomplishment of this work that several aspects are part of the process of constructing new perspectives for the feeding act. These aspects are relevant during the visits, because includes and makes the patient responsible on making food choices, treating each patient as having a unique life history, with their own demands. Since dietary counseling is an intervention focused on welcoming and listening, and has to favor the bond formation of and respect among those involved, it is reasonable to think that this practice should be included in the routine care given at HU UFGD as an important strategy for humanization of service. Therefore, in order to subsidize dietary counseling, once it is a sequential strategy that should be carried out in stages, an explanatory folder were developed to awaken the importance and relevance of food and nutritional education in nutrition professionals towards that patients or clients can build their knowledge and senses about their physiological condition.