Análise comparativa da qualidade das refeições de uma unidade de alimentação e nutrição hospitalar pública e privada do Estado da Paraíba pelo método “avaliação qualitativa das preparações do cardápio – AQPC”.

Abstract

The hospital food tends to be the target of criticism and rejection by patients, then the welldesigned menu has to be a very important tool to be used in Unit Food and Nutrition (UAN) hospital. Because of this, it has used instruments to assess the adequacy of menus not only the quantitative aspect but also qualitative, standing out among them the method of Qualitative Assessment of the Preparations Menu - AQPC. The objective of this study was to comparatively analyze the quality of meals served in a UAN Public Hospital and other private through AQPC. It was made a research exploratory qualitative descriptive, cross-sectional character, in a UANprivate hospital and public during the months of June 2015 and April 2016, respectively. The lunch menus served to patients free diet were analyzed by AQPC, which checks the criteria such as color, supply of fruit, leafy, sweet, isolated frying and associated with sweet, sulfur foods, fatty meats, and repetition of the main course. In private UAN there was no supply of fruits, leafy, sweet, fried foods and sweet accompanied by fried foods, high presence of sulfur foods (100%), monotony of color, main course repetition and presence of fatty meat in 100% of days studied. In the menus of public UAN there was regular supply of leafy (71%) and a great variability of colors, no fruit, sweet and sweet associated with fried foods, high supply of sulfur foods (100%), the supply of fatty meat 78% of the analyzed days and repeating the main dish in 71%, and a poor supply of fried food (92%). Given the above, to analyze the menus of UAN studied, there has been a lower occurrence of negative aspects in Public UAN. However, it points to the need for better planning of menus in both services, in order to improve the nutritional and sensory quality of preparations for better acceptance and greater patient satisfaction.