Assessing Knowledge of Dietary Sodium Content and Implementation of Color-Coded Cue Cards and Dietary Sodium

Assessing Knowledge of Dietary Sodium Content and Implementation of Color-Coded Cue Cards and Dietary Sodium

Assessing Knowledge of Dietary Sodium Content and Implementation of Color-Coded Cue Cards to Aid in Improving Adherence to Low Sodium Diets in Patients With Heart Failure.

Develop an evidence-based intervention aimed at patients with heart failure (HF) using color-coded cue cards to assist in the selection of foods appropriate to their sodium restricted diet. The milligram per serving sodium content of foods will be assigned color-coded green/yellow/red designation according to very low/moderate/high as identified by the United States Food and Drug Administration's definitions of sodium content. Assess patient knowledge of foods with sodium content appropriate for consumption on a low sodium diet before implementation of the intervention by calculating average milligrams of sodium per serving via choices made through simulated grocery store shopping. Evaluate application of patient knowledge about low-sodium food choices using a simulated grocery store shopping intervention by calculating average milligrams of sodium per serving via choices made using the color-coded card.

Each new patient referred to the heart failure (HF) clinic will be asked for their permission to participate in this project. Each patient enrolled in the project will have a random number assigned to protect identity, which will be assigned to their baseline data as well as food tally score sheets before and after intervention. Baseline data collection will include patient's sex, age,marital status, comorbidities, and education level. Using guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), to ensure consistency, all participating patients will be given standard dietary sodium education using a voice-over PowerPoint presentation. Approximately two weeks later, the patients will be asked to "shop" for 15 food items at a simulated grocery store. This same group of patients will then be given the evidence based intervention using a second voice-over PowerPoint presentation. During this presentation, participants will be instructed on how to use color-coded cards to assist them in choosing foods based on low/moderate/high sodium content. Green indicates foods with less than 35 mg of sodium per serving, yellow indicates foods with 35-140 mg of sodium per serving, and red indicates foods with more than 140 mg of sodium per serving. Approximately two additional weeks later, the patients will again go "shopping" for fifteen items in the same simulated grocery store using the color-coded cards that allow the patient to choose foods based on low/moderate/high sodium content. The food choices made at each grocery store encounter will be analyzed by totaling the sodium content per serving of all foods divided by the number of foods purchased (fifteen) to obtain an average milligram of sodium content per serving and then analyzed per patient, comparing that patient's pre- and post-intervention sodium per serving food choices. The average milligram of sodium per serving will be compared for each patient pre- and post-color-coded card use. The average milligrams of sodium per serving of all patients together will be totaled before the use of color-coded cards and after the use of color-coded cards. This project will assess if use of a color-coded method of dietary sodium labeling helps patients stay within their sodium restricted dietary range. A checklist with each grocery item in the store will be used to identify and tally which products each patient chooses on each shopping trip. Each checklist will also be identified only by the assigned patient number. Staff will be instructed to provide no further dietary sodium instruction to any patient. Staff will not assist the patient in choosing grocery store items on either shopping trip, and will not comment to reinforce or discourage patient food choices during shopping.

Standard dietary sodium education provided to patients with heart failure using voice over powerpoint presentation.

The use of a color-coded cue cards to educate patients with heart failure on dietary sodium. The education regarding the use of the color-coded cue card was provided using a voice over powerpoint presentation.

The use of a color-coded cue card to designate ranges of acceptable sodium content of food for comparison to labels while grocery shopping.

Difference in Mean Milligrams of Dietary Sodium in Chosen Foods Pre- and Post- Color Coded Cue Card Intervention

Each participant chose 15 grocery items at baseline (before) and after color-coded cue card dietary sodium education intervention. The outcome was the difference of the paired mean of each participant from their 15 grocery items chosen pre and post intervention.

Mean of Milligrams of Sodium for All Grocery Items That Were Chosen by the Total of All Participants Pre, and Post Intervention

All 15 grocery items were tallied for all ten participants after the first standard dietary sodium education, with the mean obtained. This was repeated with the 9 participants who chose 15 grocery items after completing the color-coded cue card education intervention.

Inclusion Criteria: English speaking diagnosed with heart failure Exclusion Criteria: Never participated in a heart failure clinic previously any patient mentally or physically unable to go grocery shopping