Abstract:
This article presents findings of a study which assessed the nutritional knowledge levels of nursing
students as nurses are in a better position to serve as nutrition educators and counselors by engaging
their clients in discussions that would increase their knowledge about disease prevention and
management through nutrition. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study, where a selfadministered
questionnaire was completed by 166 undergraduate consenting third (3rd) and final (4th) year nursing
students in a public university in Ghana who answered 20 multiple choice general nutrition questions.
An average score of 8.95 2.01 corresponding to 44.8%, below average, was obtained by the respondents.
It was determined that the nutrition knowledge of 3.6%, 62.7% and 33.7% of the study participants was
good, adequate and inadequate respectively. It was found that the differences with respect to the
nutrition knowledge levels between the age groups, gender, work experience and educational background
of respondents were not statistically significant at p < 0.05. The findings of this study support
other reports that nurses need more training in nutrition and therefore have important implications for
professionals planning curricula for nursing education at the undergraduate level in the university.
