Choice on the menu: Increasing meal choice for people living in residential aged care, a pilot study
Corresponding Author
Mikaela Wheeler
School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Herston, Queensland, Australia
Correspondence Mikaela Wheeler, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, 266 Herston Road, Building 87, Herston, QLD, Australia.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorKaren L. Abbey
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Science, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
Search for more papers by this authorSandra M. Capra
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Science, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Mikaela Wheeler
School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Herston, Queensland, Australia
Correspondence Mikaela Wheeler, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, 266 Herston Road, Building 87, Herston, QLD, Australia.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorKaren L. Abbey
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Science, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
Search for more papers by this authorSandra M. Capra
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Science, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Background
For residents in residential aged care (RAC), opportunities to make decisions about their meals are often limited. Increasing choice for residents requires significant changes to be made to the foodservice system to deliver nutritionally adequate, timely and enjoyable meals to residents. The pilot project aimed to understand the effect of increasing choice in meals on residents, staff and the foodservice system.
Methods
A pragmatic action research approach was used to collaboratively design and evaluate an altered a foodservice system that increased choice, enabling residents to place their order at the mealtime and choose from a menu of seven hot meal options for lunch and dinner. Outcome measures were measured pre- and post-implementation and included food waste, resident satisfaction and foodservice costs.
Results
Resident satisfaction measured on a 5-point Likert scale improved between pre- (3.60 ± 1.09) and post- (4.57 ± 0.49) measurements, whereas production waste increased (pre—55g, post—90 g) and foodservice costs increased (pre—$9.20–$11.14 per resident per day, post—$11.01–$12.15 per resident per day). Compared to the standard cook serve meal, consumption of protein foods increased marginally (+5 g), vegetable consumption increased (+11 g) and carbohydrate consumption decreased (−38 g) for meals consumed from the intervention menu.
Conclusions
Increasing choice can have a positive impact of resident satisfaction; however, further work is needed to investigate how production waste and costs can be addressed.
Key points
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Foodservice systems in residential aged care can be designed to enable residents to become autonomous.
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Engagement of both residents and staff in the process of co-generating knowledge, the research design and evaluation is vital to ensure intervention fit and translation to real-world settings.
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Future work should establish core intervention components needed to increase choice and develop tools and resources to enable homes to modify and adapt the intervention to suit their environment and resident needs.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Research data are not shared.
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