[Development and evaluation of nutritional screening tools]

This study aims to describe the development and evaluation of nutritional screening tools to identify risk of malnutrition in hospitalized patients. From the identification of predictive variables, the patient should be referred to the multidisciplinary team of nutrition therapy for intervention. Were studied 300 patients from a hospital in Sao Paulo, applied with a nutritional assessment survey of risk variables and conducted a multiple logistic regression for the selection of predictors. The variables associated with malnutrition were: unintentional weight loss, apparent bones, decreased appetite, diarrhea, inadequate energy intake and male sex. A nutritional screening tool was developed and showed good agreement with validated instruments.