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Validation of Paediatric Nutrition Screening Tool (PNST) among Hospitalized Malaysian Children
Shu Hwa Ong1, Seong Ting Chen1
1Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health Sciences, International Medical University, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Insights
The Paediatric Nutrition Screening Tool (PNST) effectively identifies malnutrition risk in hospitalized children. This validated screening tool is suitable for busy Malaysian hospitals.
Area of Science:
- Clinical Nutrition
- Paediatric Health
- Hospital Medicine
Background:
- Malnutrition screening is crucial for hospitalized children.
- Tertiary care settings require efficient, less burdensome nutrition screening tools.
- The Paediatric Nutrition Screening Tool (PNST) was evaluated for this purpose.
Purpose of the Study:
- To validate the Paediatric Nutrition Screening Tool (PNST) for hospitalized children.
- To assess PNST's effectiveness in a Malaysian tertiary hospital.
Main Methods:
- A cross-sectional study involving 100 hospitalized children (<18 years).
- PNST and Subjective Global Nutritional Assessment (SGNA) were administered.
- Malnutrition classification used AND/ASPEN Consensus and WHO growth standards; Cohen's kappa assessed agreement.
Main Results:
- PNST identified 57% of children at risk of malnutrition.
- PNST showed strong agreement with AND/ASPEN classification (k=0.602).
- PNST demonstrated higher specificity (85.29%) and sensitivity (78.79%) against AND/ASPEN criteria.
Conclusions:
- The PNST is a useful tool for routine malnutrition risk screening in hospitalized children.
- PNST is validated for use in Malaysian tertiary hospital settings.
- The tool's effectiveness supports its integration into clinical practice.
Background:
It is recommended to screen hospitalized children to identify those at risk of malnutrition. Constricted schedule in tertiary care settings calls for the needs of a less burdensome yet effective nutrition screening tool. This study aimed to validate the use of Paediatric Nutrition Screening Tool (PNST) among hospitalized children in a Malaysian tertiary hospital.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study recruited children below 18 years old admitting into general paediatric ward in a public hospital. The PNST and Subjective Global Nutritional Assessment (SGNA) were performed on 100 children (64 boys and 36 girls). The objective measurements include anthropometry (z-scores for weight, height and body mass index), dietary history and biochemical markers were measured. These were used to classify malnutrition as per Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics/American Society of Parental and Enteral Nutrition (AND/ASPEN) Consensus Statement for identification of paediatric malnutrition and WHO growth standards for children. Cohen's kappa was computed to report the level of agreement.
Results:
The PNST identified 57% of hospitalized children as being at risk of malnutrition. In this study, there was a stronger agreement between PNST with AND/ASPEN malnutrition classification (k = 0.602) as when PNST was compared with WHO (k = 0.225) and SGNA (k = 0.431). The PNST shows higher specificity (85.29%) and sensitivity (78.79%) when compared with AND/ASPEN than with WHO malnutrition criteria (55.81% specificity and 66.67% sensitivity).
Conclusion:
This study showed the usefulness of routine use of PNST for screening the malnutrition risk of hospitalized children in Malaysian tertiary hospital settings.
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