Original articleThe launch of the ESPEN Special Interest Group in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition
Introduction
In September 2015, at the 37th ESPEN congress in Lisbon, a new ESPEN Special Interest Group (SIG) in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition was formed and approved by the council. The interest to create a SIG focussing on paediatric issues arose out of the need for further involvement of health professionals and scientists with an interest in paediatric nutrition and better representation of paediatric nutrition within the society's broad activities. Although ESPEN has a long-standing tradition in running Paediatric LLL courses and publishing paediatric translational science in the society's primary journal, it was felt that paediatric topics in the annual ESPEN congress, research activities and participation of paediatricians and scientists with an interest in pediatrics were limited. In the period 2011–2016, 204 of 3911 submitted abstracts were registered under the “paediatrics” category (5.3 ± 1.1% per year) (Fig. 1).
The objectives of the newly founded SIG in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition are multiple and related to clinical care, research, networking and educational activities. The SIG in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition Group aims to:
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Coordinate, promote, or develop research projects or programs of studies in clinical nutrition in hospitalized children
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Develop position statements, consensus papers and guidelines in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition
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Collaborate with other ESPEN SIG groups and other paediatric societies
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Regularly report to the Society and its close stakeholders on the SIG activity, using Congresses, ESPEN journals, the website and other communication channels
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Be actively involved and participate in the development and delivery of LLL courses
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Support and advise the committees of the society or the organizational committees of congresses or meetings on any aspect related to pediatric clinical nutrition.
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Encourage participation of health professionals and scientists with an interest in paediatric nutrition in ESPEN and its activities.
The first activity of the SIG was to survey ESPEN members' opinions about the purpose and objectives of this SIG and to offer to them the opportunity for wider participation and engagement in the group's activities.
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Methods
A web-based questionnaire survey was distributed to all members of ESPEN using the regular newsletter of ESPEN members. As no pre-existing questionnaire was available, a questionnaire (available from authors on request) was compiled by the founding members of the SIG in Paediatric Clinical Nutrition. The questionnaire was split into four thematic domains:
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Responder's profession, current country of employment and area of practice.
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Membership with other paediatric professional organisations (e.g.
Results
From a total of 2828 ESPEN members in whom the regular newsletter was sent, 859 (30%) accessed the newsletter, 149 of them (17.4%) opened the electronic link of the survey and in total 123 members from 50 different countries completed the survey. The majority of responders were medically qualified and worked in clinical paediatric medicine (Table 1). Twenty six responders reported that paediatric research was their area of their current employment. Fifty nine (49%) of the responders were
Discussion
Achieving optimal nutritional support is imperative as not only do children need nutrition for recovery from illness but they also need adequate energy and nutrients for growth and development. The traditional dogma, that children are ‘little adults’ and therefore assessment, diagnosis and management of paediatric patients could rely on adult research evidence and extrapolation from adult clinical practice is known to be wrong. More research and evidence is needed to guide clinical paediatric
Statement of authorship
KG analysed the data and produced the first manuscript draft with JH. All authors have made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study, the acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data. All authors were involved in the final drafting of the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content. All authors have approved the final version.
Conflict of interest statement and funding sources
No conflicts of interest pertinent to this study. No funding sources were used.
Acknowledgements
We thank all the ESPEN members that participated in the web-based questionnaire survey. We thank Professor Philip Calder for providing the data on the number of submitted abstracts in the previous ESPEN meetings.
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