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Nutritional status and nutrition risk screening in hospitalized children in New Zealand
Vesal Moeeni1, Tony Walls, Andrew S Day
1Department of Paediatrics, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Insights
Hospitalized children face higher malnutrition risks. Nutritional risk screening tools effectively identify at-risk children, with STRONGkids proving most reliable for hospitalized pediatric patients.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Nutrition
- Clinical Nutrition
- Nutritional Epidemiology
Background:
- Hospitalized children are susceptible to malnutrition, impacting recovery.
- Assessing nutritional status is crucial for effective pediatric healthcare.
- Existing nutritional risk screening (NRS) tools require validation in hospitalized children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the nutritional status of hospitalized children compared to healthy peers.
- To evaluate the feasibility and validity of three NRS tools in pediatric inpatients.
- To identify the most reliable NRS tool for identifying nutritional risk in this population.
Main Methods:
- A comparative study involving 162 hospitalized children and a control group of healthy children.
- Nutritional status assessed using standard criteria and classified.
- Three NRS tools applied to screen for nutritional risk (low, medium, high).
Main Results:
- Hospitalized children exhibited significantly higher rates of under-nutrition (9.9% vs. 3.7%).
- Overweight/obesity rates were similar between groups.
- NRS tools identified 81-100% of malnourished patients in medium- to high-risk categories.
- Undernourished patients experienced longer hospital stays.
Conclusions:
- Pediatric inpatients in New Zealand have a greater prevalence of under-nutrition compared to healthy children.
- The evaluated NRS tools demonstrated varying utility in identifying children at nutritional risk.
- The STRONGkids tool emerged as the most reliable screening method in this study setting.
Aim:
Children requiring hospitalization are at risk of malnutrition. This study aimed to define the nutritional status of paediatric inpatients in comparison with healthy children and to compare and contrast the feasibility and validity of three nutritional risk screening (NRS) tools in the hospitalized children.
Methods:
A total of 162 children admitted to Christchurch Hospital were assessed along with a similar group of healthy children. Their nutritional state was assessed and classified using standard criteria. The NRS tools were applied, and patients were classified into low-, medium- and high-risk groups. The feasibility and validity of the tools were assessed.
Results:
Under-nutrition was more frequent in the inpatient group (9.9% vs. 3.7%; p = 0.04), whereas both groups had similar rates of overweight/obesity. NRS tools were able to identify between 81% and 100% of the malnourished patients in the medium- to high-risk groups. Undernourished patients had longer hospital stay than well-nourished patients.
Conclusion:
Hospitalized children have higher rates of under-nutrition than healthy children in NZ. The three NRS tools were able to identify children at nutritional risk with differing utility. In this setting, STRONGkids was the most reliable tool.
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