Introduction:

the prevalence of hospital malnutrition is high and involves an increase in health care costs. Home hospitalization (HH) allows better clinically stable patient control after an acute illness by a highly specialized health care team.

Objective:

to know the nutritional condition of home hospitalization patients using a computer application that allows the implementation of early nutritional measures at home and improves post-hospital control of these patients.

Material and methods:

prospective multicenter study of the nutritional condition of patients in four different home hospitalization centers during a period of two consecutive months in 2016. Variables were collected: home hospitalization, age, gender, reason for admission, associated morbidity, origin, diagnosis, social assessment, previous nutritional support, height, weight, weight loss, time of weight loss, total proteins, albumin, lymphocytes, cholesterol, body mass index (BMI), nutritional condition, type and degree of malnutrition. Nutritional condition was assessed using the application HEN-Persan and results were statistically analyzed using the SPSS 21.0 software.

Results:

no significant differences were found between the four centers. In home hospitalization patients, 36% presented a normal nutritional screening and 87% presented some degree of malnutrition, while combined malnutrition prevailed (63%). Depending on the nutritional degree, 36% of patients had mild malnutrition, 27% presented moderate malnutrition and 35% had severe malnutrition.

Conclusions:

a computer application allows for an immediate, secure and reliable nutritional assessment in home hospitalization that helps introduce early nutritional measures and improve post-hospital control of patients.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )