Nurses’ knowledge about malnutrition in older people: A multicenter cross-sectional study

Malnutrition, among older people, has a prevalence of 22% in hospitals, 17.5% in nursing homes, and 8.7% in home care. Adequate knowledge among health care staff is necessary for risk identification and adequate intervention. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the Knowledge of Malnutrition-Geriatric (KoM-G) questionnaire in Italian and to investigate the malnutrition knowledge of registered nurses working in hospitals, nursing homes, home care, and palliative care in Italy. The KoM-G questionnaire was translated and validated in terms of content validity, internal consistency, and interrater reliability. Subsequently, a multicenter cross-sectional study in different settings was performed. The KoM-G ITA questionnaire showed excellent content validity, internal consistency, and good intrarater reliability. There were 511 nurses who completed the questionnaire. On average, 61.9% of the respondents answered the questions correctly. The level of knowledge about malnutrition in nurses is adequate. Training courses and management protocols should be implemented to improve nursing care for malnourished older people. •Malnutrition is an unsolved problem among older people•It is important for nurses to have adequate nurses’ knowledge to prevent malnutrition.•The Italian version of the Knowledge of Malnutrition-Geriatric confirmed its reliability and validity.•The Knowledge of Malnutrition-Geriatric is a useful tool for investigating nurses’ knowledge and for implementing corrective strategies.