Identification of hospitalized patients with nutritional risk at admission assessed with the Nutrition Risk Screening

Objective

To determine the prevalence of nutritional risk in hospital admission of adult patients and to analyse its association with sociodemographic and clinical factors of the patients.

Method

Cross-sectional, analytical and prospective study carried out on patients at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona between November and December 2018, during the first 48 h of hospital admission. Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS-2002) was used to detect malnutrition. Sociodemographic (age, sex), clinical (admission diagnosis, unit and comorbidities) and anthropometric (weight, height and BMI) data were collected. The association between the NRS and the study factors was estimated using a logistic regression model.

Result

285 patients with a mean age of 69.6 years (SD 15) were included, of which 56.5% (161) were ≥70 years. The prevalence of risk of malnutrition at hospital admission was 35.1% (95% CI: 29.8 %–41.1 %), this being 15.9 times higher in patients with a previous stay in intensive care (OR 15.90, 1.82–139.11: p 0.012); 10.35 times higher in patients with severe pneumonia (OR 10.35; 2.48–41.91: p 0.004) and 5.6 times higher in patients with stroke (OR 5.63; 1.71–18.53: p 0.004).

Conclusions

The prevalence of nutritional risk at admission was high and factors such as severe pneumonia, stroke and previous ICU admissions were associated with a higher risk of malnutrition. However, the findings of this study should be interpreted with caution due to the limitations of the severity criteria of the Nutrition Risk Screening.