Assessment of Acceptability and Satisfaction of Patients for Government Hospital Diets

Nutrition plays a major role in protecting health and slowing disease progression. Hospital diets play an indispensable role in patient recovery and well-being. But providing appropriate nutrition in the hospital meal is a particularly challenging task because of the diverse dietary needs of the patients. The proposed study was done with the objective to assess the satisfaction of the patients towards the diet and overall acceptability of the hospital diet being served to the patients. The study was conducted in one government hospital in Chandigarh city. Sixty self structured questionnaires based on four types of diets viz. regular, diabetic, low protein-low sodium and high protein diets were filled with the cooperation of patients after seeking due permission from hospital authorities. Questionnaires were tabulated and analyzed using SPSS12. The sensory evaluation was done by using 5-point Hedonic Scale. From the data, it was deduced that 56.67 per cent of the patients were satisfied from the quantity given whereas only few patients (26.67%) were satisfied with the desired consistency of diets. After analyzing sensory aspects of the diets, it was found that the mean of freshness, taste, appearance and aroma were 2.93 ± 0.841, 2.55 ± 0.946, 2.68 ± 1.016 and 2.48 ± 0.873 respectively. The mean of overall acceptability of the served diets was 2.66 ± 0.932. The findings of the study show that almost all the patients were satisfied with the type of diets they were getting, amount of the feed and time taken for the delivery of the meal. The major issue for the dissatisfaction among patients were monotonous, repetitive and insipid food which requires serious and determined attempts of dietetics and Food Service Department.