ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors extend their sincere appreciation to the hospital administrators who facilitated data collection and ensured smooth access to the study population. Special thanks are due to the diet technicians and registered dietitians for their hands-on assistance and patient engagement, which significantly enriched the quality of the data. Above all, we are deeply grateful to the patients who generously shared their time and perspectives, making a meaningful contribution to this research and its broader implications for hospital food service evaluation.
AUTHORS CONTRIBUTIONS
Concept—T.S.G.B., K.J.M.; definition of intellectual content — T.S.G.B., K.J.M.; content — T.S.G.B.; literature search — T.S.G.B., K.J.M.; clinical studies — T.S.G.B., C.E.H., G.S.B.; experimental studies — T.S.G.B.; data acquisition — T.S.G.B.; data analysis — T.S.G.B., W.L.B.; statistical analysis— T.S.G.B., W.L.B.
FUNDING
This research did not receive external funding.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE
The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.
INFORMED CONSENT
Because the research involved anonymous survey responses, formal written consent was not required. Instead, patients received an informational form outlining the study’s purpose, procedures, and voluntary nature prior to participation.
ETHICS APPROVAL
The Publication Ethics Committee of the Association for Health Sciences and Education. The journal’s policies adhere to the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
PROVENANCE AND PEER REVIEW
Not commissioned; externally double-blind peer reviewed.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
All data generated for this study were used exclusively to address the stated research question and are not intended for public archiving. However, all analyzed data are transparently reported within the manuscript through summary statistics and response distributions. No additional datasets are available.
DATA SHARING STATEMENT
The raw survey data underlying this study are not publicly available due to the anonymous nature of data collection and institutional confidentiality requirements. De-identified datasets cannot be shared to ensure participant privacy.
OPEN ACCESS
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
COPYRIGHTS
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
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