An educational model for improving diet counselling in primary care

Aiming to improve the quality of diet recording and instruction in primary care, we developed a simple semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire for type 2 diabetic patients and had doctors record each other's diet habits with the same questionnaire. The analysis of the diet composition was given to the doctors who considered the educational model to be fun, instructive and thought-provoking. Doctors with a relatively unhealthy diet and a relatively high body weight tended to show dissatisfaction with their own diet, had poor self-assessed knowledge about nutrition, and even a wish to improve their own diet after having seen the result of the diet interview. The proportion of diabetic patients being treated with diet alone tended to decrease with their doctors' decreasing diet counselling skills, which indicates that doctors' attitudes may exert an effect at patient level.