Screening of the nutritional risk in elderly hospitalized patients with different tools

Abstract

Background and objectiveNutritional assessment of the elderly is difficult and different to that performed on younger people. Specific tools for this purpose include the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI). The study objective was to compare this index to the Nutritional Risk Index (NRI). Materials and methodsA retrospective, observational, analytical study including 113 hospitalized patients over 75 years of age receiving nutritional support. Weight, height, age, length of stay, Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), nutrition type and duration, and occurrence of complications were recorded. GNRI and NRI were calculated. Both indexes were compared to each other and to the parameters measured. ResultsMean GNRI was 88.79 (SD: 13.1), mean NRI 79.96 (SD: 10.8), and mean MNA 17.49 (SD: 4.9). Complications occurred in 50.4% of patients, and 14% died. The NRI and the GNRI did not correlate either with length of stay (R=0.136) or with length of nutrition (R=0.041). No significant correlation was seen between the GNRI and complications, but a significant relationship was found with the NRI. After stratification into surgical and/or patients, the NRI was shown to be significantly related to complications in surgical patients only (p<0.05). The GNRI was not related to complications in either surgical or medical patients. ConclusionsIn hospitalized elderly patients, the NRI is a better predictor of complications and may be more appropriate for assessing the risk of death than the GNRI. The GNRI underestimates nutritional risk as compared to NRI.