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Nutrición Hospitalaria

 ISSN 1699-5198 ISSN 0212-1611

MARTIN-PALMERO, Ángela et al. Malnutrition in hospitalized patients: results from La Rioja. []. , 34, 2, pp.402-406. ISSN 1699-5198.  https://dx.doi.org/10.20960/nh.458.

Background:

There is a high malnutrition prevalence in hospitalized patients.

Aim:

To determine the malnutrition prevalence in hospitalized patients of La Rioja Community (Spain) when evaluated with different screening/evaluation tools and its relationship with hospital stay and mortality.

Methods:

Cross sectional observational study of hospitalized adult patients (age > 18 years old) from medical and surgical departments that underwent within 72 h of their admission a nutritional screening with Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS) 2002, Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) y Subjective Global Assessment (SGA).

Results:

384 patients (273 medical and 111 surgical) were evaluated. Almost fifty percent of them were considered malnourished independently of the screening/assessment tool used. High concordance was found between SGA and NRS-2002 (k = 0.758). Malnourished patients had a longer hospital stay than those well-nourished (9.29 vs. 7.10 days; p = 0.002), used a greater number of medicines (9.2 vs. 7.4; p = 0.001) and underwent a higher number of diagnostic tests (16.4 vs. 12.5; p = 0,002).

Conclusions:

Half of the hospitalized patients in the medical and surgical department of La Rioja are malnourished. This is associated with a longer hospital stay, higher use of medicines, diagnostics tests and greater mortality. Malnutrition could be detected with easy screening tools to treat it appropriately.

: Hospital malnutrition; Nutritional status; Nutritional screening; Nutritional assessment.

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