Avaliação da aceitação das dietas livres ofertadas ás crianças internadas em um hospital universitário materno - infantil.

Abstract

In the hospital setting, the child may respond with various behavioral changes resulting from the disease process, as well as from the distance from the family environment. These changes result mainly from the low acceptance of the hospital diet, which may be related to the decrease in appetite due to the disease and the treatment used. It is important to emphasize that the meals offered to hospitalized children require a certain specificity, emphasizing aspects such as colors and food formats using gastronomic artifices in the manner of their presentation, as preparations in the form of "drawings" to instigate the curiosity of the child and stimulate the acceptance of the meal. Therefore, the objective of this research was to evaluate the level of acceptance of free diets offered to hospitalized children in a Maternal-Infant University Hospital. The present study is a field survey, cross –sectional, quali-quantitative and descriptive approaches, developed in the period of one month in referred hospital, situated in the city Cajazeiras/PB. The meals of lunch offered to pediatric patients aged 6 to 12 years who were prescribed free diets were analyzed, totaling a sample of 16 children. The acceptance of meals was verified through the application of a semi-structured individual questionnaire composed of a facial hedonic scale adapted to the age group, considering the perception of bad to great as to the attributes of visual presentation, flavor, color, aroma, texture and temperature of meals; associated with two open questions. The questionnaires were applied on two consecutive days to assess the acceptance in relation to default presentation menu (DPM) and modified (MPM). Additionally, the degree of acceptance of DPM and MPM was evaluated through the determination of the Rest-Ingestion Index from the weighing of all the distributed preparations and the food rejects. The values obtained were tabulated and analyzed statistically. The strategy to promote the improvement in the acceptance of the meals MPM was based on the modification of the presentation form of the preparations, without replacing the utensils. In the acceptability tests and in the rest-ingestion index, no significant statistical differences were observed, most probably due to the sample size. However, a reduction was found in this index from 33.06% to 16.37%, demonstrating a positive effect in the reduction of food waste in the studied group. Therefore, 10 it can be noticed that the modifications in the presentation of the diets had repercussions in the reduction of the food waste as a consequence of the better acceptance of the meals by the group.