Chinese Nutrition Educational Materials for Renal Patients: A 2010 Update

Article Outline

• Acknowledgments
• Copyright

IN SEPTEMBER 2007, we published the article “Chinese Nutrition Educational Materials for Renal Patients” in the Journal of Renal Nutrition, which featured the 8 nutrition handouts in Chinese that we developed for the renal program at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Since then, we have received numerous requests from dietitians and nephrologists to share our Chinese resources for educational purposes. The requests were sent from across Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Singapore.

As described in the aforementioned article, once the need to communicate specific nutrition information to the Chinese population was identified by the renal dietitians, a Chinese computer software program was used to develop the educational materials. These resources included both original and adaptations of previous patient educational materials available in English. They feature culturally appropriate food items and eating patterns, and are suitable for use by both Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking populations. Content, accuracy, and readability of the drafts were assessed by dietitians, professional translators, and selected patients who were able to read Chinese and were familiar with the Chinese culture and cuisine.

In response to local as well as international demand and a continually increasing number of Chinese patients in our renal program, we developed 7 additional resources in Chinese since the publication of our article in 2007. The growing need for Chinese education materials was reinforced by the Statistics Canada’s 2006 Census Data, which showed that the Chinese population in Vancouver had grown by 11.3% between 2001 and 2006. Findings showed that 18.2% of the Vancouver population was from a Chinese background, and 87% among these identified Chinese as their mother tongue.

To date, the following 15 nutrition educational materials in Chinese have been developed for St. Paul’s Hospital:

In addition to developing 7 new handouts since the publication of our article in 2007, we have worked in partnership with the British Columbia Provincial Renal Agency (BCPRA), an agency of the British Columbia Provincial Health Services Authority. BCPRA provided financial and technical support to review and redesign the previously listed resources with professional graphic designers and expert translators. The handouts were reformatted to have the Chinese and English versions side-by-side on the same page instead of back-to-back. This new format allows for easy reference by educators and caregivers who can read English but not Chinese.

To help support nutrition counseling that is culturally friendly to all Chinese renal patients across British Columbia, we worked with BCPRA to make our Chinese handouts electronically accessible to all renal dietitians in British Columbia through the provincial renal database known as Patient Records and Outcome Management Information System. Attached is a sample of one of the handouts (Fig. 1). Interested dietitians, nephrologists, and renal educators are welcome to contact the corresponding author for a copy of the listed handouts.

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Acknowledgments 

The authors thank the BCPRA and all the dietitians, student volunteers, and patients who helped with the development and revision of the educational materials.