What is in my Patient's Pantry? Addressing Food Insecurity in Primary Care: a Quality Improvement Project

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Koontz, R. (2021). What is in my Patient's Pantry? Addressing Food Insecurity in Primary Care: a Quality Improvement Project. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

Food insecurity (FI) has negative health effects throughout the lifespan, yet there is a disconnect between national recognition of FI as a health issue and FI screening in the clinical setting. The purpose of this project was to determine if an educational intervention increased knowledge of FI’s role on health, the screening and referral process, and using ICD-10 coding to document FI. A pretest-posttest design was used, sampling clinicians across five clinical sites. Participants received virtual education and completed a pre-, post-, and 3-month follow-up survey to measure knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to address FI issues. A retrospective ICD-10 coding report for FI was obtained to measure frequency of use per clinic site. Thirty-one clinicians completed the pre- and post-survey, and twelve clinicians completed all three time points. Participants’ knowledge of FI and knowledge of referral resources was significantly improved from the pre- to post-survey (p < .0001, p < .0000 respectively). Clinicians showed a significant change in their intent to ask patients about FI (p < .0000) and to refer patients to community food resources (p < .0000); this remained at the 3-month follow-up (p < .008, p < .001). There was not a significant change in the use of the ICD-10 code for FI throughout the measurement period. The results of this project support findings in the literature that a point-in-time educational training on FI could improvement clinicians’ knowledge, as well as their willingness to screen patients for FI and connect them to food resources.

Details
Author

Koontz, Rachel

Title

What is in my Patient's Pantry? Addressing Food Insecurity in Primary Care: a Quality Improvement Project

Physical Description

1 online resource (67 pages) : PDF

Date

2021

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

Food insecurity (FI) has negative health effects throughout the lifespan, yet there is a disconnect between national recognition of FI as a health issue and FI screening in the clinical setting. The purpose of this project was to determine if an educational intervention increased knowledge of FI’s role on health, the screening and referral process, and using ICD-10 coding to document FI. A pretest-posttest design was used, sampling clinicians across five clinical sites. Participants received virtual education and completed a pre-, post-, and 3-month follow-up survey to measure knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to address FI issues. A retrospective ICD-10 coding report for FI was obtained to measure frequency of use per clinic site. Thirty-one clinicians completed the pre- and post-survey, and twelve clinicians completed all three time points. Participants’ knowledge of FI and knowledge of referral resources was significantly improved from the pre- to post-survey (p < .0001, p < .0000 respectively). Clinicians showed a significant change in their intent to ask patients about FI (p < .0000) and to refer patients to community food resources (p < .0000); this remained at the 3-month follow-up (p < .008, p < .001). There was not a significant change in the use of the ICD-10 code for FI throughout the measurement period. The results of this project support findings in the literature that a point-in-time educational training on FI could improvement clinicians’ knowledge, as well as their willingness to screen patients for FI and connect them to food resources.

Genre

doctoral dissertations

Subjects--Topics

Nursing

Degree

D.N.P.

Keywords

Food Insecurity
Primary Care
Training

Subject Area

Health Services Research

Advisor(s)

Shue-McGuffin, Katie

Committee Members

Whitaker-Brown, Charlene
Nance, Andrew
Newton, Xiaoxia

Degree Note

Thesis (D.N.P.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2021.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Koontz_uncc_0694D_12695

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:2430