Detection of nutritional risk on hospital admission.

Abstract

Objective: To identify older patients at nutritional risk admitted to the hospital.
Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study carried out with 30 patients aged 65 and over, who were admitted in October 2019 to internal medicine, general surgery and traumatology units at a third-level hospital belonging to the Madrid Health Service. The study variables were stratified according to the socio-demographic profile of the population and the hospital admission to the internal medicine, general surgery or traumatology units.
Results: A total of 30 patients who were admitted to internal medicine, general surgery and traumatology units participated. After the application of a screening tool, nutritional risk was observed in all of them. After the age comparison of the people included in each group performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test, no statistically significant differences were detected. In the same way, the Chi-Square test showed that nutritional risk is not associated
with the admission unit.

Conclusion: Nurses can integrate a nutrition screening tool in the nursing assessment with the aim of identifying the patients at risk before the interrelation between other factors due to hospitalization and the reason for admission. Consequently, preventing the increase of morbidity during hospitalization and the readmission rates after hospital discharge, as well as improving life quality, reducing the hospital stay, the health spending and the mortality index.