The objective of this paper was to characterize and compare the human resources dimensioning in food and nutrition hospital services (FNHS) and the qualification of the dietitian technical personnel in public and private hospitals. We studied 27 hospitals, 17 from Campinas and 10 from Ribeirão Preto, through a structured questionnaire applied to coordinators of the FNHS. The questionnaires addressed working conditions, by the number of beds per dietitian and per FNHS workers and number of meals per beds, per dietitian and per FNHS workers; academic background; and professional experience of dietitians. We found significant differences in the number of beds per dietitian between public (38.2 SD 11.4) and private (94.6 SD 46.4) hospitals, and of FNHS workers per dietitian (11.4 SD 4.9 and 23.8 SD 13.3 for public and private hospitals respectively). The number of meals per bed was greater in public hospitals (p = 0.04). Dietitians with stricto sensu post-graduation degrees are concentrated in public hospitals whereas the ones with lato sensu post-graduation degrees are present in larger numbers in private hospitals. The wide heterogeneity in the dimension of human resources of FNHS in public and private hospitals has been found yet. The public setor showed more favorable conditions hospitals had in some indicators, although short of the needs in the area mainly for nutritional care for hospitalized patients. The results point to the need to provide specific indicators of human resources in FNHS, for the performance of shares in the production of food and nutritional care to hospitalized patients. Build mechanisms for training of nutritionists for areas of competence of hospital food could contribute to improvement of the sector.
hospital nutrition; human resources; profile of dietitian
