investigation of the volume of food waste in qaem and imam reza hospitals in mashhad, iran

Introduction: food waste is a growing concern that contributes to the reduction of energy and protein intake. the present study aimed to investigate the volume of food waste in different wards of qaem and imam reza hospitals in mashhad, iran. methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted during one week in imam reza and qaem hospitals in mashhad in 2016. research population consisted of 425 patients in the selected wards of the hospitals. participants were selected non-randomly from the hospitalized patients. rate of food waste was measured at lunchtime using the food residual observational checklist. data analysis was performed in spss version 16 using descriptive statistic to define the baseline characteristics. in addition, independent samples t-test was used for the comparison of food waste between the main course and appetizer. crosstab and chi-square were applied to compare the main course and appetizer waste based on gender, hospital, and ward, and analysis of variance (anova) was used for the comparison of age with various degrees of food waste. results: in total, 13.9% of the patients left their food in the plate entirely. food wastage in the appetizer was significantly higher than the main course (p<0.001). moreover, the number of the patients who entirely left their food was lower in qaem hospital compared to imam reza hospital (27.84% versus 22%) (p=0.003). food wastage was significantly higher in the cardiac ward compared to the other wards (p=0.006). conclusion: according to the results, food waste varied in different hospitals and hospital wards. therefore, serving meals based on wards and patient requirements could be an effective solution to decrease food waste.