About

Kirsten Whitehead qualified as a dietitian in 1985. She worked in both hospital and community NHS dietetic posts for over 20 years. Her roles covered a variety of clinical conditions including specialist roles in HIV disease, cardiovascular disease, obesity and public health. She completed a Masters in Public Health in 2000.

Kirsten moved into higher education in 2002 and taught on the Master of Nutrition and Dietetics degree at the University of Nottingham until 2019. During that time she completed her Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Kirsten’s PhD was on communication skills to support behaviour change in dietetics. That work included a survey of BDA members views on communication skills which has recently been repeated (Whitehead and Parkin, 2021). The PhD also included the development and validation of the DIET-COMMS tool which is designed to assess communication skills within the context of a dietetic consultation. Subsequently this led to the development of an open access training package to support the use of DIET-COMMS in practice https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/dietcomms/ . This training package is used in many universities within the UK and also in Australia.

Kirsten is now working freelance as a dietetic educator and is continuing with some research into communication skills in dietetics. At SHU Kirsten supports both the MSc Dietetics (Pre-reg) and the Degree Apprenticeship (DA) Dietetics.

Teaching

College of Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences

Subject area:

• Dietetics

Courses taught:

• MSc Dietetics (Pre-reg)
• Degree Apprenticeship (DA) Dietetics

Modules taught:

• Creating original practice
• Professional Practice
• Dietetic practice in long term conditions
• Complexity in dietetic practice
• Evaluating research methodologies
• Leadership in public health nutrition
• Skills for dietitians

Research

Whitehead K and Parkin T (2021) UK Dietitians’ views on Communication Skills for Behaviour Change: A 10 year follow up survey. J Hum Nutr Diet. DOI: 10.1111/jhn.12903

Notaras S & Whitehead K (2020). Implementation of a peer review program using the validated DIET-COMMS tool to assess dietitians’ communication skills in the workplace. Nutr & Diet. Article DOI: 10.1111/1747-0080.12635

Wilson Z and Whitehead K (2019) A cross sectional survey to assess healthcare professionals’ attitudes to and understanding of probiotics. Clinical Nutrition ESPEN DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnesp.2019.08.004

Whitehead K (2015) Changing dietary behaviour: the role and development of practitioner communication Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 74:177-184. doi:10.1017/S0029665114001724

Whitehead, K. A., Langley-Evans, S. C., Tischler, V. A. & Swift, J. A. (2014). Assessing communication skills in dietetic consultations: the development of the reliable and valid DIET-COMMS tool. J Hum Nutr Diet. 27 (Suppl 2) 321-332 doi: 10.1111/jhn.12136

Pridgeon A. & Whitehead K. (2013) A qualitative study to investigate the drivers and barriers to healthy eating in two public sector workplaces. J Hum Nutr Diet. 26, 85–95

Whitehead K., Langley-Evans S.C., Tischler V., Swift J.A. (2009) Communication skills for behaviour change in dietetic consultations. Views of the profession, J Hum Nutr Diet 22(6):493-500