[Nutritional screening tool versus anthropometric assessment in hospitalized children: which method is better...

Hospitalization contributes to worsening of the nutritional status and malnutrition is associate to increase in morbidity and mortality. The aim of the study was to asses nutritional status/risk using anthropometry and the Screening Tool for Risk on Nutritional Status and Growth (STRONGkids), comparing their results to clinical outcomes. For that propose, was conducted an observational longitudinal study with children up to one month of life, hospitalized in Pediatric ward of a teaching hospital. Nutritional status was assessed by Body Mass Index for age and weight for age. Nutritional risk was classified as high, intermediate or low. The length of stay, clinical outcome and complications were taken of the medical records. This project was approved by the Ethics Committee on Research. Were evaluated 181 children, from both sexes. The median age was 8.8 (IQR 3.3; 26.9) months and the median length of stay was 7 (IQR 4; 10) days. There was 20.8% of malnutrition in children younger than one year. Most of the children (55.3%) were classified as in intermediate nutritional risk. The length of stay was associated to nutritional risk, while anthropometry was associated to only in those younger than one year. There were five infectious complication, not associated to nutritional status/risk. Therefore, nutritional risk was significantly associated to length of stay, showing that STRONGkids was a better method compared to anthropometric nutritional assessment to predict this outcome.