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[Nutritional assessment and clinical application of nutritional risk screening tools in critically ill children]
Jun-Ying Qiao1, Fei-Fei Guo, Fan Li
1Department of Pediatrics, Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China. junying.qiao@163.com.
Insights
Critically ill children often face malnutrition and nutritional risk, impacting their prognosis. Nutritional risk screening tools like STRONGkids and PYMS are valuable for assessment, with STRONGkids showing higher sensitivity.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Intensive Care
- Clinical Nutrition
- Nutritional Assessment
Background:
- Critically ill children are at high risk for malnutrition.
- Early identification of nutritional status is crucial for improving outcomes in pediatric intensive care.
- Nutritional risk screening tools aid in assessing malnutrition in hospitalized children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the nutritional status of critically ill children.
- To assess the effectiveness of STRONGkids and PYMS nutritional risk screening tools.
- To determine the relationship between nutritional status and prognosis in critically ill children.
Main Methods:
- Clinical data from 211 critically ill children were analyzed.
- Nutritional status was assessed on admission and discharge.
- STRONGkids and PYMS tools were used for nutritional risk screening.
Main Results:
- 32.2% of children exhibited malnutrition on admission.
- STRONGkids and PYMS identified high nutritional risk in 73.0% and 78.2% of patients, respectively.
- Both tools demonstrated significant clinical value in screening for malnutrition, with STRONGkids showing higher sensitivity (92.1%) compared to PYMS (76.2%).
- Malnutrition and high nutritional risk were associated with poorer prognosis.
Conclusions:
- High prevalence of malnutrition and nutritional risk exists in critically ill children.
- Malnutrition and high nutritional risk correlate with adverse patient outcomes.
- Both STRONGkids and PYMS are clinically valuable for nutritional risk screening in this population, with comparable efficacy, though STRONGkids is more sensitive.
Objective:
To investigate the nutritional status of critically ill hospitalized children and to explore the value of nutritional risk screening tools in the nutritional risk assessment.
Methods:
The clinical data of 211 critically ill children who were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit from November 2017 to April 2018 were collected to evaluate their nutritional status on admission and at discharge. Two nutritional risk screening tools, STRONGkids and PYMS, were used for nutritional risk screening in the 211 children.
Results:
Among the 211 patients, 68 (32.2%) were found to have malnutrition on admission, with 34 cases each of moderate and severe malnutrition. Moderate or high nutritional risk was found in 154 cases (73.0%) with STRONGkids and 165 cases (78.2%) with PYMS. Using weight-for-age Z-score as the gold standard to evaluate the efficacy of the two nutritional risk screening tools, the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of STRONGkids and PYMS were 0.822 and 0.759 respectively. Both tools had a significant clinical value in screening for malnutrition (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference in clinical efficacy between them (P>0.05). With the optimal cut-off value of 3 points, the sensitivities of STRONGkids and PYMS for screening of malnutrition were 92.1% and 76.2% respectively. The children with moderate or high nutritional risk on admission had a significantly poorer prognosis than those with low nutritional risk (P=0.014 and 0.001 respectively). The children with severe malnutrition had a significantly poorer prognosis than those with normal nutrition (P=0.0009).
Conclusions:
The detection rates of malnutrition and nutritional risk are high in critically ill children. Malnutrition/high nutritional risk is related to a poor prognosis. Both STRONGkids and PYMS have a clinical value for nutritional risk screening in critically ill children, and they have similar clinical efficacy; however, STRONGkids is more sensitive.
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