[Home and ambulatory artificial nutrition. Enteral nutrition. The NADYA Group]

Home enteral nutrition is, at present, a therapeutic alternative which can be applied to a great number of patients who only require hospitalization for the nutritional treatment, thus improving their quality of life and reducing costs. The experience in this field is great in other countries, and we believe its use is growing in Spain. To better understand this situation, the data of 589 patients from 25 hospitals of the entire national territory, have been evaluated. When analyzing the diseases which led to the instigation of enteral nutrition, the most frequent causes were found to be neurological afflictions and tumoral processes. At the time of establishing the indication, only 50% of the patients were undergoing curative therapy. The nasogastric tube was used in the majority of cases (69%), even during prolonged periods of time. The formula of enteral nutrition which was most used was the standard, possibly due to the difficulty of acquiring other types of formulas when this is not specifically indicated. The formula is frequently administered by syringe (44%) and by bolus (41%). The cost of the formula and the necessary infusion material, was mainly carried by the referring hospital. The complications registered were rare (0.18 episodes/patient) and of a slight character, of gastrointestinal of mechanical origin, which could be resolved in the home. The follow up of the patient was done in similar percentages by the Departments of Nutrition, by the at home hospitalization teams, and, in a coordinated way, between Nutrition and Primary Attention. 23 % of the patients finished the treatment due to improvement, 20 % died, and 15 % continued treatment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)