Abstract
Malnutrition is highly prevalent among hospitalized patients, ranging from 30% to 50% depending on the patient population and the criteria used for diagnosis. Identifying early those who are malnourished and at risk of malnutrition and intervening at an early stage will improve patients overall prognosis and will reduce the costs to the state. Even though cardiac patients are at risk of malnutrition, data on the prevalence of malnutrition among cardiology inpatients is limited. The aim of the study was to assess malnutrition status of the newly admitted patients in a specialist cardiology institution in Sri Lanka by internationally recommended nutrition screening and assessment tools. During study period, 322 (61.22%) males and 204 (38.78%) females were recruited. Malnutrition status assessed by each screening tool had a wide variation. According to Mini Nutritional Assessment tool 69.6% were having possible malnutrition. Malnutrition Screening Tool 47.9% to be at risk of malnutrition. Subjective Global Assessments categorized only 4.2% as malnourished on the other hand Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool categorized 20.4% and 19.6% subjects as at medium risk and high risk of malnutrition respectively. Nutritional Risk Screening detected 6.3%, 25.1% and 24.9% patients to be mildly, moderately and severely malnourished respectively. Short Nutrition Assessment Questionnaire categorized 5.0% and 17.7% patients to be moderately malnourished and severely malnourished correspondingly. In conclusion, Although malnutrition was prevalent among this population, a wide variation in the nutritional status when assessed by widely used internationally recognized tools was observed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-412) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Malnutrition is any imbalance in nutrition; from overnutrition to under-nutrition
Despite current advancements in understanding of the value of proper nutritional care, the malnutrition is yet highly prevalent among hospitalized patients, ranging from 30% to 50% depending on the patient population and the criteria used for diagnosis (McWhirter and Pennington 1994) and is often unrecognized and underestimated by health care workers (Stratton et al 2006)
The mean body mass index (BMI) was 23.61 kgm−2 (±4.15) while the females had a higher Body mass index (BMI) than males
Summary
Malnutrition is any imbalance in nutrition; from overnutrition to under-nutrition. Over-nutrition which was more prevalent in developed countries is becoming a major health problem in less developed countries as well (Subramanian and Smith 2006). Despite current advancements in understanding of the value of proper nutritional care, the malnutrition is yet highly prevalent among hospitalized patients, ranging from 30% to 50% depending on the patient population and the criteria used for diagnosis (McWhirter and Pennington 1994) and is often unrecognized and underestimated by health care workers (Stratton et al 2006). Identifying early those who are malnourished and at risk of malnutrition and intervening at an early stage will improve patients overall prognosis and will reduce the costs to the state (Neumayer et al 2001). Nutrition screening is a process of identifying characteristics known to be associated with malnutrition risk while nutrition assessment is a diagnostic tool to determine if a patient is currently malnourished (Identifying patients at risk: ADA's definitions for nutrition screening and nutrition assessment Council on Practice COP Quality Management Committee 1994)
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