Abstract

PADILLA-ROMO, Martha; MARTINEZ-CORDERO, Erika  and  MARTINEZ-CORDERO, Claudia. A simple and reliable tool for detection of nutritional risk in hospitalized patients. Nutr. Hosp. [online]. 2015, vol.32, n.1, pp.379-382. ISSN 1699-5198.  https://dx.doi.org/10.3305/nh.2015.32.1.9091.

Introduction: malnutrition in hospital associates with complications such a high rates of infections, increased length of stay, and increased economic costs. Hospitals require applying a simple and reliable tool for detection of nutritional risk. Objective: to evaluate the agreement between a screening tool used in a hospital and both MUST and SGA tools to determine the prevalence of nutritional risk. Methods: patients -with a hospitalization period less than 36 hours- were assessed with three nutritional screening tools. Kappa value was used to assess agreement between the tests; SGA was the gold standard. Results: the study included 100 patients (F = 49, M = 51) with a mean age of 49 years. MUST presented a good agreement with the SGA (kappa = 0.55). Conclusions: MUST presents the highest agreement with the gold standard; therefore, it must be used to screen nutritional status of hospitalized patients due to its simplicity, reliability, and reproducibility.

Keywords : Nutritional screening tools; Hospitalized patients; MUST; SGA.

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