1) What is the effectiveness of general practitioners’ (GPs) nutrition care interventions versus usual care or no care on dietary and health outcomes in individuals with diet-related chronic conditions? and 2) What components within GPs’ nutrition care interventions are associated with effectiveness?
This review will consider studies that include individuals with diet-related chronic conditions. To be considered diet-related, the condition must be one in which diet plays a role in disease prevention and/or management. There will be no exclusion criteria based on participants’ other demographic factors, e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, geographic location, pregnancy, or age (pediatric populations will be included).
The review will consider articles whose stated aim is the evaluation of GPs’ nutrition care practices. Nutrition care interventions will be included if they are administered by GPs during primary care consultation(s) that are part of an existing GP’s private practice or other primary health care setting.
Studies that compare the delivery of nutrition care by GPs to usual care or no care (i.e., a passive control) will be considered.
Two types of outcomes will be considered for this review: 1) dietary, and/or 2) health outcomes, taking in both positive and negative effects. Dietary outcomes include energy consumption; dietary intake (e.g., usual dietary intake, fruits & vegetable consumption); macronutrient intake (e.g., saturated fat, fiber); diets/diet quality scores (e.g. Healthy Eating Index, Mediterranean Diet Score), etc. Health outcomes include both anthropometric measures (e.g., weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, fat mass); and clinical measures (e.g., HbA1c, fasting blood glucose, serum lipids, blood pressure, incidence/onset of disease, mortality). Studies will be excluded if the minimum period from baseline to the first follow-up for outcome measure(s) is less than three months.