Nutritional status at submission for dietetic services and screening for malnutrition at admission to hospital

This paper presents two studies in a quality management project that aims to diminish malnutrition among hospitalized patients. The objective of study 1 was to investigate what information was available on the nutritional status of patients submitted for dietetic services for reasons other than obesity (n = 167) and of study 2 to evaluate a nine-question screening sheet for malnutrition in patients (n = 115) within 48 h of admission to the hospital. In study 1 sufficient data to evaluate nutritional status was found for 17% of the patients submitted for dietetic services. In study 2 the screening sheet identified 21% of the patients as malnourished and a full nutritional assessment of seven anthropometrical and biochemical measurements 20%. The screening sheet could be simplified to six questions and then had a sensitivity of 0.69, a specificity of 0.91 and a positive predictive value of 0.65. It is concluded that evaluation of nutritional status in hospitalized patients has been disregarded and a simple screening sheet can be used to identify patients in need of further nutritional assessment and treatment.