J Korean Soc Parenter Enter Nutr.  2013 Aug;5(2):82-88. 10.15747/jkspen.2013.5.2.82.

Development of a New Nutrition Screening Tool for Use in an Acute Care Hospital

• Lee H
• Shim H
• Jang JY
• Jung AR
• Kim SH
• Kim H
• Kim KS
• Lee JG

• KMID: 2190891
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.15747/jkspen.2013.5.2.82

Abstract

PURPOSE
The objective of this study was to develop a new nutrition screening tool for quality improvement of the nutritional care process in an acute care hospital with a 2,000-bed capacity.
METHODS
To evaluate the current nutrition screening tool, we first examined 435 patients (274 men, aged 59.0+/-12.2 years). In the second step, the nutritional status of 387 patients (215 men, aged 57.5+/-13.3 years) was assessed by the scored patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) tool. Variables such as age, body mass index (BMI), plasma albumin concentration, weight change, food intake change, and disease severity were analyzed to select indices for developing a new Severance nutrition screening index (SNSI).
RESULTS
The current nutrition screening tool had a poor correlation with the PG-SGA (kappa=0.180, P<0.0001). The SNSI was calculated as follows: SNSI = 1.5xalbumin+1.0xBMI+4.5xintake change+1.5xweight loss (for albumin<3.0, BMI<20, and decreased intake and weight loss>5% of usual body weight). The SNSI showed a sensitivity of 90.5%, a specificity of 90.7%, and a high correlation (kappa=0.628, P<0.0001) with the PG-SGA.
CONCLUSION
The SNSI appears to be a valid and useful nutrition screening tool to determine the nutritional risk of patients in acute care hospitals.

Keyword

Nutrition status; Nutritional index; Screening; Nutrition

MeSH Terms

Body Mass Index
Eating
Humans
Male
Mass Screening*
Nutrition Assessment
Nutritional Status
Quality Improvement
Sensitivity and Specificity
Serum Albumin
Serum Albumin