| In 2005, the Lowcountry Food Bank (LCFB) in Charleston, SC, launched an initiative to provide nutrition education to clients that seek food assistance. The agency directors of the 332 member agencies of the LCFB are in direct contact with clients, therefore they could provide nutrition education rather than the LCFB staff alone. As such, the self-efficacy of agency directors to deliver nutrition education must be measured. The objective of this project was to measure the self-efficacy of agency directors of the LCFB. A 17-item instrument measuring self-efficacy was developed, including ten validated items from the General Self-Efficacy Scale and an additional seven content-specific items. The instrument was piloted before and after a 45-minute nutrition education session to the LCFB 12-member Agency Council. The instrument was then mailed to all 332 agency directors, and 117 returned surveys (87 females and 30 males) were analyzed for correlations. There was no significant difference (P=0.490) in self-efficacy as measured by the GSE scale items between the males and females. Conversely, there was a significant difference (P=0.001) in self-efficacy between the males and females as measured by the content-specific items. Whether or not the respondents had nutrition training did not present significantly different (P =0.493) self-efficacy results on the GSE scale items; however, those respondents who had nutrition training responded with significantly more self-efficacy (P=0.002) on the content-specific items. There was no significant difference among the education levels and self-efficacy results. The LCFB will use these study results to develop strategies to help member agencies provide nutrition education to their clients. |
