The incidence of malnutrition in hospitalised patients

This paper is the third in our literature review series and looks at the subject of nutrition. In 1859 Florence Nightingale suggested that thousands of patients were 'annually starved in the midst of plenty, from want of attention to the ways which alone make it possible for them to take food'. Over 130 years later it is still being suggested that nutrition remains a neglected area of patient care. It is sobering to realise that little has changed in this time. This paper provides an overview of malnutrition in hospitals and investigates the factors contributing to the high incidence of nutritional depletion which, even today, is so common in hospital patients.