Iñaki Elío, director of the Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics (NHD) at the European University of the Atlantic (UNEATLANTICO), leads the publication of a new article in the prestigious journal Nutrients (MDPI, Q1, vol. 18, no. 2, art. 257), entitled “Innovative Application of Chatbots in Clinical Nutrition Education: The E+DIETing_Lab Experience in University Students.”
The multicenter study, conducted with 475 university students from Spain, Portugal, Poland, Austria, and Belgium, shows highly satisfactory results: 79% perceive the tool positively, 90% value its usefulness, and there is a 73.9% improvement in the self-assessment of nutritional skills after five virtual clinical interactions.
This research was funded by the Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE), grant number 2021-1-ES01-KA220-HED-000032074 (Erasmus+ project ‘Digital Lab for Education in Dietetics combining Experiential Learning and Community Service’ [E+DIETing_Lab], 2021–2024).
UNEATLANTICO, as the coordinating institution, collaborated with an international consortium of six partners: University of Valladolid (Spain), St. Pölten University (Austria), University of Porto (Portugal), AP Hogeschool Antwerpen (Belgium), and Jan Kochanowski University (Poland). More information at https://edietinglab.eu.
Elío participated in the writing of the article together with other authors such as Kilian Tutusaus, Imanol Eguren-García, Álvaro Lasarte-García, Arturo Ortega-Mansilla, Thomas A. Prola, and Sandra Sumalla-Cano.
This new publication reinforces UNEATLANTICO’s commitment to cutting-edge research in nutrition, integrating digital technologies into the Human Nutrition and Dietetics Degree program and consolidating its European leadership. It adds to the recent excellent evaluation of the E+DIETing_Lab project by SEPIE (86/100 points).
The success of E+DIETing_Lab extends to the MAHINE project, also led by UNEATLANTICO, which is beginning to develop virtual patients to improve nutrition education in Angola.
This work validates the innovative application of chatbots with artificial intelligence in clinical nutrition education, based on the experience of the European E+DIETing_Lab project, accessible at: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/18/2/257