Increasing Treatment Compliance of Eating Disorder Patients by Decreasing Stimulating Triggers in the Meal

Abstract

Record ID: 154

Program Affiliation: Capstone and Co-op

Presentation Type: Poster

Abstract: Currently, patients have an increased risk of prolonged recovery as the current eating disorder protocol involves all patients eating in the same meal room. This environment negatively impacts patients by inducing stressful interactions. Purpose: The purpose of our project is to further understand as to why patients feel overstimulated during mealtimes and how the current practice doesn't meet the holistic criteria for recovery. We created a PICOT question and found evidence to support our proposal of why eating disorder patients need a therapeutic milieu during mealtime. We provided education to five nurses on the medical surgical unit at a Children's hospital. To evaluate the responses of the unit we conducted a pre and post test. Our survey included questions regarding level of comfort when caring for eating disorder patients. We also gathered the nurses' opinions on the current treatment pathway. The survey responses were measured using a 1-5 scale (0-100%), with 1 representing not having enough knowledge to answer while 5 represents strongly agreeing with the statement. The pretest questions 9 University of Cincinnati   averaged a 70% which is a 3 on our 1-5 scale while our post test increased to 87% which is a 4. These results conclude that our presentation was well received by the nurses and that they are in support of changing the standard meal room protocol. This project provided a deeper understanding of eating disorder patients while evaluating if changes in the meal room environment could enhance recovery.