Abstract
There is a lack of accurate prevalence data on undernutrition and the risk of undernutrition among the hospitalised elderly in Europe and Norway. We aimed at estimating the prevalence of nutritional risk by using stratified sampling along with adequate power calculations. A cross-sectional study was carried out in the period 2011 to 2013 at a university hospital in Norway. Second-year nursing students in acute care clinical studies in twenty hospital wards screened non-demented elderly patients for nutritional risk, by employing the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS2002) form. In total, 508 patients (48·8 % women and 51·2 % men) with a mean age of 79·6 (sd 6·4) years were screened by the students. Mean BMI was 24·9 (sd 4·9) kg/m(2), and the patients had been hospitalised for on average 5·3 (sd 6·3) d. WHO's BMI cut-off values identified 6·5 % as underweight, 48·0 % of normal weight and 45·5 % as overweight. Patients nutritionally at risk had been in hospital longer and had lower average weight and BMI compared with those not at risk (all P < 0·001); no differences in mean age or sex were observed. The prevalence of nutritional risk was estimated to be 45·4 (95 % CI 41·7 %, 49·0) %, ranging between 20·0 and 65·0 % on different hospital wards. The present results show that the prevalence of nutritional risk among elderly patients without dementia is high, suggesting that a large proportion of the hospitalised elderly are in need of nutritional treatment.
Highlights
There is a lack of accurate prevalence data on undernutrition and the risk of undernutrition among the hospitalised elderly in Europe and Norway
A pilot study involving 290 elderly patients and ninety-six nursing students was performed during the autumn of 2010 and the spring of 2011 at the university hospital to test the use of a nutritional risk screening form, as well as the additional questionnaire on the patients’ demographic characteristics
The present results demonstrate that undernourishment is a serious public health problem among the hospitalised elderly
Summary
The present study is targeted at estimating the prevalence of nutritional risk among elderly hospitalised patients. All second-year nursing students at the university college in question who were undergoing their acute and clinical care practice studies at the university hospital were instructed to screen elderly patients for nutritional risk. On the screening days the students filled in the questionnaire for each patient, including questions about age, sex, length of hospital stay, weight, height, BMI and nutritional risk.
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