Validation of a New Malnutrition Screening Tool for Hospitalized Pregnant Women

The Screening for Obstetric Undernutrition in Pregnancy Detection (SOUND-P) is a questionnaire designed to assess the nutrition status of hospitalized pregnant women. The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the SOUND-P among inpatients.

A total of 200 pregnant women were admitted to the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vietnam from November 2023 to January 2024. Nutritional risk screened by SOUND-P was compared with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Nutrition Checklist, the obstetric nutritional risk screening, composite diagnostic criteria, and estimated fetal weight. We determined sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values, negative predictive values, receiver operator characteristics curve, and the best cut-off scores. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using κ measurements.

Using SOUND-P, the optimal cut-off score to identify malnourished pregnant women was 1, with 62.5% of patients at risk of malnutrition. The percentage agreement between dietitian and nurse was 98.0%, with a κ value of 0.96 (95% CI 0.94-1.00). SOUND-P demonstrated sensitivity ranging from 80.65% to 90.70%, specificity ranging from 40.11% to 45.22%, positive predictive values from 12.80% to 31.20%, and negative predictive values from 92.00% to 97.33%. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve for SOUND-P were above 0.6.

The SOUND-P is a valid and reliable nutrition screening tool for determining malnutrition risk in hospitalized pregnant women.