Results of a nutritional status survey (nutritionDay2008) in hospitals

Introduction: nutritionDay has been launched by The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN), and it was organized in Europe for second time on 31st of January. Our main aim was to evaluate the nutritional risk of hospitalized patients on different departments in order to help professionals to optimalize nutritional therapy of the patients.

Patients and methods: 221 hospital wards volunteered to participate with 3962 volunteer patients (55.7% men, 44.3% women, mean age was 62+/-11 years). The heads of departments and the patients completed questionnaires. Data analysis was done with comparing the 95% confidential intervals, Student's t-test, one- and multiple linear regressions.

Results: The mean BMI was 26.8+/-5.8 [kg/m2]. In the 3 months before the survey 36.8% of the patients lost weight, 57.6% was stable (3.9% did not know). The amount of involuntary weight loss was: 0–4kg in 19.4%, 5–8kg in 6.7%, and more than 8kg in 9.0% of the patients (2.7% did not know). According to the MUST (valid tool) results 29.0% of the patients were at risk of malnutrition. Nutritional team functioned in 71.9% of the surveyed departments; in the 83.7%of the departments individual nutritional plan was used. The ratio of malnutrition was significantly (p<0.001) lower where they were realized.

Conclusions: The risk of malnutrition in between 19.4 and 29.0% depending on the criteria and tools chosen. It is conspicuous that using MUST the risk of malnutrition is increasing significantly (p<0.05). Nutritional status has a substantial influence on the severity, therapeutical consequences and costs of diseases and interventions, and mortality.

Nestlé HealthCare Nutrition supported the realization of the survey.

Keywords: nutritional status, nutritional therapy, nutritionDay