Intensive care physicians' attitudes and perceptions on nutrition therapy: a web-based survey.

Objective: Nutritional therapy is an important element in critical ill patient care. Although recognized as specialty, multidisciplinary teams in nutrition support are scarce in our country. Possibly, nutrition support therapy is applied by intensive care physicians and this may vary. The aim of the study is describe these specialists perceptions about theirs attitudes in enteral nutrition support.

Methods: A questionnaire was elaborated in an on-line platform. After pre-validation, it was sent by electronic mail to intensivists. In 30 days answers were collected, considering only the full-filled questionnaires.

Results: One hundred an fourteen forms were returned, 112 were analyzed. The responders were localized at majority in southeastern region. About beggining of nutritional support, the majority of answers reflect perceptions in accord to specialists societies recommendations. The responders' perception the frequent utilization of assistentials protocols in nutrition care. After support beginning, the responders perceptions about theirs participation in changes in therapeutic plan seems to be lower. The self-knowledge about the theme among the responders was 6.0 (arithmetic media) in a 1 to 10 scale.

Conclusions: More studies are necessary to evaluate nutritional support practices among intensive care physicians. Alternatives to on-line platform should be considered. Possibly, intensive care physicians do better in the initial phases of enteral support than in continuity of care. Intensive care physicians knowledge about the issue is suboptimal.