Abstract

COMPARISON OF NUTRITIONAL SCREENING TOOLS IN A TERTIARY HOSPITAL

Lally Hanna Luke*, Bhavana C. K. and Deepa C. Philip

ABSTRACT

Malnutrition is a major health problem in developing countries, caused by deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in the intake of energy, protein and other nutrients. To identify the nutritional status and check whether the patients are under nutritional risk, certain tools are being used to analyse their state of nutritional level on hospitalization. Nutritional screening is the first step in identifying patients at risk for malnutrition, allowing for prevention and early intervention. The study compared three tools to assess the nutritional status of hospitalised patients and determine which was the most effective. The study design followed was prospective observational study. Three nutritional screening tools were evaluated: Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), Nutrition Risk Index (NRI) and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002). 100 samples were selected from the general ward who were admitted for medical intervention was selected. Cronbach's Alpha was used to assess the reliability of the nutritional assessment tool based on individual scores. Spearman Rank correlation coefficient was used to calculate the correlation coefficient. Cronbach's Alpha for SGA nutritional assessment was 0.828, 0.182 for NRI nutritional assessment, and 0.81 for NRS nutritional assessment. Cronbach's Alpha of more than 0.70 is considered good. So, when compared to other nutritional assessment tools, such as NRI and NRS, SGA nutritional assessment was deemed adequate. The comparison of three different nutritional screening tools showed that Subjective Global Assessment, was the better tool for detecting nutritional risk and malnutrition among hospitalised patients.

Keywords: Malnutrition, Subjective Global Assessment, Nutritional Risk Index, Nutritional Risk Screening.