Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Hospital Malnutrition, A Call for Political Action: A Public Health and nutritionDay Perspective

Michael Hiesmayr
* ORCID logo ,
Silvia Tarantino
,
Sigrid Moick
,
Alessandro Laviano
ORCID logo ,
Isabella Sulz
ORCID logo ,
Mohamed Mouhieddine
,
Christian Schuh
,
Dorothee Volkert
,
Judit Simon
,
Karin Schindler
Version 1 : Received: 11 November 2019 / Approved: 12 November 2019 / Online: 12 November 2019 (16:46:08 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Hiesmayr, M.; Tarantino, S.; Moick, S.; Laviano, A.; Sulz, I.; Mouhieddine, M.; Schuh, C.; Volkert, D.; Simon, J.; Schindler, K. Hospital Malnutrition, a Call for Political Action: A Public Health and NutritionDay Perspective. J. Clin. Med. 2019, 8, 2048. Hiesmayr, M.; Tarantino, S.; Moick, S.; Laviano, A.; Sulz, I.; Mouhieddine, M.; Schuh, C.; Volkert, D.; Simon, J.; Schindler, K. Hospital Malnutrition, a Call for Political Action: A Public Health and NutritionDay Perspective. J. Clin. Med. 2019, 8, 2048.

Abstract

Disease related malnutrition (DRM) is prevalent in hospitals and is associated with increased care needs, prolonged hospital stay, delayed rehabilitation and death. Nutrition care process related activities such as screening, assessment and treatment has been advocated by scientific societies and patient organizations but implementation is variable. We analyzed the cross-sectional nutritionDay database for prevalence of nutrition risk factors, care processes and outcome for medical patients. In 59126 medical patients included between 2006-2015 the prevalence of recent weight loss (45%), history of decreased eating (48%) and low actual eating (53%) was more prevalent than low BMI (8%). Each of these risk factors was associated with a large increase in 30 days hospital mortality. Nutrition care processes increases slightly with presence of risk factors but never done in more than 50% of patients. Only a third of patients not eating in hospital receive oral nutritional supplements or artificial nutrition. We suggest that political action should be taken to raise awareness and formal education on all aspects related to DRM for all stakeholders, to create and support responsibilities within hospitals, and to create adequate reimbursement schemes. Collection of routine and benchmarking data is crucial to tackle DRM.

Keywords

malnutrition; disease related malnutrition; risk factors; nutrition care; mortality; recommendations

Subject

Medicine and Pharmacology, Dietetics and Nutrition

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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