[A pilot study on a quality improvement plan with systematic nutritional screening in patients admitted to a regional...

A pilot study to assess the feasibility of implementing a hospital protocol for systematic nutritional screening of admitted patients.

Descriptive cross-sectional study. Patients admitted to the Orthopedic Surgery Department of the Regional Hospital of Alcañiz were systematically included within the first 48 hours of hospitalization, from February to September of 2007. The screening methods used were the Nutritional Risk Index (NRI), the CONUT Nutritional Control system, and an indicator based on SENPE recommendations. The need for nutritional support was defined as the presence of any of the following instances: moderate to severe hyponutrition according to the NRI or CONUT methods, or hyponutrition according to the adapted SENPE recommendations.

36.4% of the patients assessed need nutritional support. The rate of hyponutrition according to CONUT is 13.6%, by SENPE criteria is 27.3%, and by the NRI 29.5%. The inter-method agreement is statistically significant and clinically acceptable: Kappa between NRI and CONUT 0.547, between NRI and SENPE 0.609, and between CONUT and SENPE 0.593.

The implementation of a structured protocol for collecting the anthropometrical and biochemical parameters implicating a multidisciplinary hospital team enables identifying those patients in whom appropriate nutritional support may improve their prognosis during hospital stay.