The health implications of malnutrition in Northern New South Wales

To observe the prevalence of malnutrition in adult patients admitted to northern NSW hospitals and whether their nutrition status was associated with increased length of stay in hospital, readmissions rates and in-hospital mortality compared to well-nourished patients

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Observational

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12619000342112

Enrollment

130

Registered

2019-03-05

Start date

2018-12-03

Completion date

2019-02-04

Last updated

2019-07-15

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

The purpose of the study is to report malnutrition prevalence from the nutrition audit conducted in 2014 and whether certain outcomes demonstrate an association to the determined nutrition status. Understanding whether malnutrition is linked to outcomes including length of stay in hospital, readmission, infections and falls can help identify where improvements in medical care is required. Based on previous findings in the literature, the hypothesis is that malnourished and severely malnourished patients experience longer number of days in hospital, are at an increased risk of having falls, infections and in-hospital mortality.

Interventions

Newly admitted patients were assessed for nutrition status in 2014. The audit was performed using the Subjective Goal Assessment tool, a validated tool for assessing malnutrition in the hospital setting. Retrospectively, conditions observed from medical records documents during their admission include: length of stay in hospital, mortality in hospital, hospital readmissions, falls in hospital, falls in subsequent admissions, infections, pressure wounds. The data was collected retrospectively bet

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

adult patients admitted to the medical, surgical and rehabilitation wards of Tweed, Murwillumbah, Mullumbimby and Byron Bay hospitals.

Exclusion criteria

children, pregnant patients, patients admitted to wards other than those specified

Outcome results