Enteral nutrition volume as a Quality Indicator in Nutritional Therapy in wards

To assess the compliance with the Nutrition Therapy Quality Indicator "prescribed versus infused volume".

Secondary data analysis, performed in four adult wards (clinical and surgical) of a Brazilian university hospital. Data were prospectively collected in two sequential periods - between June and November 2017 (cohort 1) and from May 2018 to May 2019 (cohort 2). The difference between the prescribed and infused diet volume was assessed using the Wilcoxon test; and to measure the relationship between the difference and the mean difference of the prescribed and infused volumes, the method suggested by Bland and Altman was applied.

A total of 494 patients were included. It was observed that patients received, on average, less enteral nutrition than prescribed (-601.3±430ml/day), which represented approximately 46% less diet; only 17.7% of patients were able to reach the target for this indicator (infusion of ≥80% of the prescribed volume). Furthermore, no patients received the entire prescribed volume during the established period.

The volume of diet infused was substantially lower than that prescribed, resulting in low compliance of the indicator monitored in the wards.