Author(s): Dagim Dagne, Ebisa Negera, Rukiya Debalke, Soresa Alemu*, Sabit Zeinu
Background: A large proportion of hospital patients are malnourished. At admission, approximately 30% to 50% of patients are at risk of malnutrition, and many of these patients experience further nutritional decline during their hospital stay. Malnutrition in hospitalized patients has significant clinical consequences, including an increased risk of medical complications, a longer length of stay, and a lower quality of life in adult patients. Despite this there is a scarcity of evidence on the change in nutritional status among adult hospitalized patients and the factors that influence it.
Methods: From June 1 to July 30, 2021, a hospital-based prospective cohort study involving 270 medical, surgical, and gynecologic wards admitted adult patients aged 18 years was conducted at Mettu Karl Compressive Specialized Hospital. At admission and before discharge, the patient's nutritional status was assessed within 24 hours using the subjective global assessment. The chi-square and student t-test were used to determine the statistical difference between nutrition change category and outcome variable groups. The predictors of declining nutritional status were identified using logistic regression models. In all hypothesis tests, a statistical significance of 0.05 was used.
Results: On admission, a total of 270 patients were included, of these 203 patients had stayed greater than 7 days in the hospital and measured both subjective global assessment at admission and discharge. The median length of stay in the study population was 10 days (8, 12). Overall 31% improved, and 19.2% declined nutritionally from admission to discharge. Odds of occurrence of complications were significantly greater (OR=2.274, 95% CI, 1.052, 4.915), patients with deteriorated nutritional status had longer length of stay in the inpatient treatment.
Conclusions: In this study, less number of patients declined their nutritional status during hospitalization. Being female, older age, and poor nutritional status at admission are the predictive factors that contribute to nutritional declination during hospitalization.
