Exploring clinical dietitians' day-to-day practice through the critical incident technique.

This exploratory study was related to dietitians' day-to-day clinical practice using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). The method consisted of asking 25 clinical dietitians to describe events which had occurred in their professional practice that they judged to be either favorable or unfavorable. Results showed that positive incidents were mostly associated with: being involved with patients, their families, physicians and nurses; with their impact on patients' quality of life and health; and with the recognition of the importance of the role of dietitians. Negative incidents were associated with being involved with the same factors, as well as with speech and language specialists. They were also linked to interpersonal and role conflicts, complaints and lack of communication.The relevance for dietitians of developing communication, debating and negotiation skills was highlighted. The classification scheme used to categorize data would be useful in conducting a repeat of the study on a larger sample.