Abstract

JIMENEZ GARCIA, Rafael et al. Progression of the in-hospital malnutrition. Rev Cubana Pediatr [online]. 2014, vol.86, n.3, pp.298-307. ISSN 0034-7531.

Introduction: in-hospital malnutrition is associated to increased morbidity and mortality that affect medical assistance quality, with higher average rates of hospital stay and readmission. Objective: to evaluate the progression of in-hospital pediatric malnutrition by using the methodological tool called Survey of In-hospital Pediatric Malnutrition and the Survey of Pediatric Nutritional Risk at "Juan Manuel Marquez" university pediatric hospital in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Methods: a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted three times and involved all the children aged 0.1 to 19 years who were admitted to this hospital. The sample was made up of 157 children in the 2008, 188 in the 2010 and 158 in 2012 studies, respectively. Anthropometric assessments were made including weight and length/size measurement. At the same time, the Survey of Pediatric Nutritional Risk was applied to all the children to determine the risk of malnutrition at the time of admission. Results: there was an increase of acute malnutrition (weight for length/size lower than 3rd percentile) of 9.4 % and of chronic malnutrition of 6.1 %, from 2008 to 2012. Obesity, as marker of nutritional morbidity, increased by 3.1 % in the same period. Severe malnutrition risk on admission was reduced by 6.0 % whereas the mild risk increased by 5.3 %. Conclusions: in-hospital pediatric malnutrition remains a significant health problem, so the health managers must pay a special attention to it. At the same time the Nutritional Support Group should increase its efforts for education in order to improve the nutritional services.

Keywords : hospital malnutrition; nutritional risk; nutritional care.

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