[Prevalence of malnutrition in Spanish institutionalized older people: a multicentric nationwide analysis]

Deficient nutritional status has important implications on vulnerable people's health status, such as those with chronic diseases or older people in situation of dependency.

To examine SARquavitae centers users' nutritional status at admission.

Health, cognitive and functional status of people admitted to any company centers during 2012 was studied. Nutritional status was assessed using the short version of the Mini Nutritional Assessment. Finally, an analysis was performed to identify the most influential variables on the sample's nutritional status.

Clinical records of 4,297 admissions were analyzed. The average age was 82.08 years and 66.1% were women with high comorbidity. At admission, 30.4% of the sample was in malnutrition and 49.4% at risk of malnutrition. A higher prevalence of malnutrition is found in women, in those coming from an acute care hospital or its outpatient clinics, with worse functional and cognitive status and those with chronic conditions such as dementia, cerebrovascular disease or dysphagia.

As demonstrated by the study results, people admitted to SARquavitae nursing homes present a high clinical complexity. Comprehensive assessments are needed that allow establishing specific care plans for people with complex care needs in nursing homes.