BMC Nursing Tittle Meal Taking Behavior of Nurses in Government Health Clinics in Selangor and Its Associated Factors - A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction Meal taking behaviour MTB covers a broad definition, from food motive, pattern, dieting and diet related diseases. There are many factors that may affect MTB including social and environmental factors. Nurses were found to skip meals, take high calories food and fast foods. A good MTB is important for nurses ‘health, maintaining good job performance and as role model to the public.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 178 staff nurses of public health clinics in Selangor who have fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria Data was collected from September 2020 till March 2021 using pre-tested and validated self-administered questionnaire. Cronbach alpha were 0.78 for knowledge and 0.71 for MTB. Data was analysed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 25.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics. All ethical approval was obtained from ethical committees and written consent were received from all the respondents.Result: The response rate was 97%. Findings showed 42% of respondents had poor MTB, 47.1% had poor nutritional knowledge and 58.9% of nurses were overweight and obese. There was significant association between MTB with source of foods (breakfast and dinner) with p= 0.016 and p<0.001 and eating companion during lunch (p=0.003). Other factors, such as sociodemographic, working and employment factors were found to have not statistically significant association.Conclusion: MTB showed to be a problem among nurses at the study location with a 42.9% of them had poor MTB and half of them nurses have weight problem. We found that MTB is significantly associated with their food source and eating companion. Intervention should be taken to improve the MTB of nurses.