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Five categories of interacting factors that influenced symptoms of anxiety and depression both before and after surgery were identified: pain, lack of information, disability, return to work, and mental health. Information appears to have a regulating effect on anxiety and depression.

The findings suggest that a short-duration training programme enhances nurses' awareness of nutrition care, but it is not enough to achieve the nurses' full understanding of their responsibility for nutrition care.

Many patients do not eat and drink sufficiently during hospitalization. Surveys have shown that 30-50% of the elderly patients are undernourished when hospitalized, and for the majority of these patients their protein and energy requirements are not met during hospitalization. Diseased people often experience reduced appetite, aversion against certain types of food or nausea, and these symptoms are part of the explanation for insufficient consumption of food and drinks. In order to locate other possible explanations, this study investigate medical inpatients' experiences and satisfaction with the nutritional care. The patients included a total of 91 medical inpatients at two internal medical wards, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. Their average age was 72 +/- 11 years. They were individually interviewed about the food service and the nutritional care upon discharge. Patient satisfaction with the meals was overall high (90%). About 80% found the meals to be very important, but they lacked information about the food service, and the patients-staff communication about the food service was poor. The results indicate that the nursing staff was exercising a 'knowledge monopoly' in relation to the food service. In conclusion, a majority of the patients did not perceive the nutritional care as part of the therapy and nursing care during their hospitalization.

Background: The inspiration for the present assessment of the nutritional care of medical patients is puzzlement about the divide that exists between the theoretical knowledge about the importance of the diet for ill persons, and the common failure to incorporate nutritional aspects in the treatment and care of the patients. The purpose is to clarify existing problems in the nutritional care of Danish medical inpatients, to elucidate how the nutritional care for these inpatients can be improved, and to analyse the costs of this improvement.

Our findings suggest that a strategy based on the principles of experimental learning theory and the phases in the look, think and act model facilitated the implementation of nutritional guidelines in a hospital setting.

Further qualitative research is needed to consider cultural factors of importance for managing fatigue in everyday life among patients with heart failure. Furthermore research should explore and test different kinds of physical and mind-body activities on the patients' functional capacity and wellbeing.