The Effect of Nutrition Consultation on Dietary Diversity Score of Cardiac Patients Referred to Cardiac Rehabilitation Research Center Isfahan Cardiovascular Research Institute during 2008–2013

BACKGROUND: Dietary diversity score (DDS) measurement was used to assessment of diet quality in different disease like cardiovascular disease. One way to improve the cardiovascular patient's ability is cardiac rehabilitation program that include exercise training, nutrition consultation and psychological treatment. No study was designed to compare the DDS before and after dietary consultation among cardiac rehabilitation patients, so this study was designed to examine this purpose. METHODS: Subjects were participated in the 2-month cardiac rehabilitation program. All patients that completed the cardiac rehabilitation program and 2 dietary records (before and after nutritional counseling in cardiac rehabilitation program) enrolled in study. Kant et al method was used for scoring dietary diversity. Data were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 20). Wilcoxon test were used to compare DDS score for each subgroup and pair sample T test was used to compare total DDS after and before nutrition counseling. P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: The differences between DDS of grain, fruit, vegetable and meat before and after nutrition counseling were not significant (P = 0.635, P = 0.423, P = 0.826, P = 0.207 respectively), but differences of DDS for dairy and total DDS before and after nutrition counseling were significant (P = 0, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Dietary diversity was increased after nutrition counseling among patients with cardiac disease.