A gastronomia hospitalar como recurso para melhorar a aceitação de dietas infantis de pacientes do hospital e maternidade de Cuité - PB.

Abstract

Gastronomy presents itself as an important tool to be used by professional nutritionists to improve the acceptance of hospital diets, since among the goals of this science we have to prepare tasty meals, taking advantage of the most various techniques and preparation methods to improve the sensory characteristics of the food. This research aimed to evaluate the impact of the presentation of diets on their acceptance by patients of a municipal hospital in Cuité / PB. Data collection included analysis of 42 days, in which 21 days using the standard presentation of diets hospital (standard presentation – SP) and 21 days after the change in presentation of meals (experimental presentation – EXP). To gauge the acceptance of the hospital diets the rejectindexes (reject index – RI) were measured and questionnaires with hedonic scale were applied for patients. In the SP group, it was observed that the average reject indexof the menu A and B were respectively 44.22% and 45.97%, being the highest value presented 77.92%. With the change to EXP group, the average RI values decreased to 31.70% on the menu A and 31.95% in B. As for the responses in the questionnaire for the dietacceptance, with the SP, 90% of patients approved the meal lunch and 10% disapproved, compared with 50% who approved and 50% disapproved that the lunch meal at EXP. Even with the significant decrease in the RI values after change in presentation of meals, still above the acceptable parameters. These results demonstrate that other factors may be determining the low acceptance of the diets,being