Nutrition and Health Status of Health Care Professionals

Abstract

Health care professionals are having several occupational risks than the rest of the population because of the specificity of their working conditions. Since the health of health care professionals affects their performances, self–care may examine closely to improve the health care system. Therefore, this study was conducted to state nutritional and health status of health care professionals, performing a survey including dietary intake pattern and health status query. This was a cross sectional study carried out among health care professionals who were working at hospitals in Istanbul and Izmir–Turkey. A total of 62 health care professionals were interviewed face to face by using pre–tested questionnaire. Mean age of subjects was 38.66±10.05years. Fifty eight percent (58.1%) of health care professionals were female. The mean BMI value was 25.40±4.32 and 53.22% of the health care professionals had a BMI value over 25. Twenty six percent of the subjects were declared to suffer from chronic diseases such as CVD, stomach and gut problems, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. Sixty four percent of the subjects had a family history of diseases. It was observed that more than half of the participants (59.0%) were regularly taking three meals a day. Among them, 11.3% was taking supplement. Mean vegetable and fruit consumptions in portion per day were 1.23±0.54, and1.05±0.59, respectively. Water consumption was 1.64±0.83litter/day. The irregular working conditions of health care professionals may affect their nutritional and health status. This pilot study gave an opportunity to analyze the health care professionals’ status concluding that nearly half of the population could not take three meal regularly, more than 50% of subjects had BMI value over 25.0 and 26% had chronic diseases.