Best practices for home nutritional management in postoperative gastric cancer patients: an evidence summary

To review and summarize the most compelling evidence on home nutritional management for postoperative gastric cancer patients, with the aim of providing a reference to improve patients' nutritional status at home.

A comprehensive search was conducted across both Chinese and English-language databases according to the '6S' evidence resource model to identify relevant literature on home nutritional management for postoperative gastric cancer patients. The selected studies were screened, evaluated, and synthesized to extract high-quality evidence.

A total of 19 articles were included in the final review, including 6 evidence-based guidelines, 4 expert consensus, 2 systematic reviews, 1 evidence summary, 1 qualitative study, 1 class experiment, and 4 RCTs. Through induction and integration, 27 best evidences were formed, which was cat-egorized into seven key areas: nutritional monitoring and assessment, multidisciplinary teamwork, home nutritional management, home nutritional support, health promotion, symptom management, and post-discharge follow-up. These evidences provide clear practical recommendations, such as the selection of home nutrition assessment tools (NRS-2002), the frequency of nutrition assessment (Every two weeks for the first three months), the order of home nutrition during rehabilitation (Diet-ONS-HEN), and the treatment of postoperative adverse nutritional symptoms.

This study presents a systematic compilation of the best available evidence on home nutritional management for postoperative gastric cancer patients. The findings provide a scientifically grounded framework for healthcare professionals and patients to optimize nutritional care at home. In the future, investigations should focus on translating these evidences into practice through implementation science methodologies, while systematically evaluating the contextual barriers of the implementation of theoretical evidence and the gap between it and the real demand.