Authors (including presenting author) :
Chu HKO(1), Chan YLJ(1), Lau YLA(2) , Chan YTT(1), Ng WBG(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department : Dietetics, YCH,
(2)Medical Infirmary, YCH
Introduction :
Malnutrition is common in hospital settings. However malnutrition exists before patients are admitted which will further increase the risk of infection, poor wound healing. This leads to increased health care cost and increased length of hospital stay. This Point Prevalence survey is to investigate the percentage of patients who are at risk of malnutrition before admission to YCH
Objectives :
To identify the average proportion of patients at risk of malnutrition before admitted to YCH at a specific point of time so that strategies or policy may be developed to prevent malnutrition.
Methodology :
This survey was done half yearly. All new patients who were admitted to YCH, except pediatrics & ICU, on a specific date from April 2015 to October 2018 were screened for malnutrition by using Hong Kong Chinese-Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (HKC-MUST). The Nutrition screening was performed within 24 hours of admission. A standard Nutrition Screening form was completed and sent to Dietetic Department . Malnutrition was defined as having a Nutrition score greater than one.
Result & Outcome :
80% (n=939) patients were screened. Average Percentage of malnutrition was 17.8 % (n=167), range from 12.5-26% The highest rate of malnutrition was in medical ward 12.2% (n=115), followed by surgical ward 3% (n=28), then Orthopaedics 0.7%( n=7) while infirmary ,rehabilitation wards were the same 0.6% (n=6). Last but not least Emergency ward 0.5% (n=5)
For medical patients, poor nutrition will affect their health status such as hospital acquired infection especially during flu seasons. For surgical and Orthopaedic patients poor nutrition may affect surgical outcome. Therefore, future policy and guidelines for Nutrition Screening and Nutrition intervention to prevent malnutrition in community is recommended. Strategy such as adopting nutrition screening and develop community dietetic service to reduce readmission rate is warranted. If patients are screened as being malnourished , nutrition care plan should be implemented which in turn can improve nutritional status , aid wound healing
