Background: Recent digitization of patients’ hospital records in our country provides a new opportunity to assess hospital based nutritional outcomes, such as malnutrition. Currently, there is no universally accepted nutrition screening tool for detection of malnutrition. It is suggested to assess malnutrition at an early stage, by a simple tool based on scientific evidence. The malnutrition screening tool used in this study is based on only two questions that assesses only weight loss and loss of appetite.
Objective: The aim of the study is to determine ability of malnutrition screening tool (MST) in patients hospitalized for tertiary care to accurately identify patients with malnutrition.
Participants/setting: A prospective observational was conducted that included 310 patients admitted to surgical wards of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi between October, 2018 to July 2019. To assess the study population demographic, anthropometric and MST scores were obtained.
Statistical Analysis: The results were expressed as mean, standard deviation and median. Chi square tests were used to compare category variables. Sensitivity, specificity and predictive values was calculated. The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was determined.
Results: 310 patients were enrolled in the study with higher number of males (63.5%) than females. Sensitivity was found to be 94.20%, specificity of 66.80% and positive likelihood ratio of 2.84.The area under the ROC curve was 0.8050.
Conclusion: There is lack of research validating the MST in patients hospitalized for tertiary care to accurately identify patients with malnutrition. Therefore, further large scale studies are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the MST.
Impact Factor
2022: 6.012
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