Dietary Modification
Conditions
Keywords
enteral nutrition, tube feeding, nutritional support
Brief summary
Home enteral nutrition (HEN) has always been recognized as a life-saving procedure, but with the ongoing economic crisis influencing health care, its cost-effectiveness has been questioned recently. Objective: The unique reimbursement situation in Poland enabled the otherwise ethically unacceptable, hence unavailable, comparison of the period of no-feeding and the long-term feeding and the subsequent analyses of the clinical value of the latter and its cost-effectiveness.
Detailed description
Background: Home enteral nutrition (HEN) has always been recognized as a life-saving procedure, but with the ongoing economic crisis influencing health care, its cost-effectiveness has been questioned recently. Objective: The unique reimbursement situation in Poland enabled the otherwise ethically unacceptable, hence unavailable, comparison of the period of no-feeding and the long-term feeding and the subsequent analyses of the clinical value of the latter and its cost-effectiveness. Design: The observational multicentre study in the group of 456 HEN patients was performed between January 2007 and July 2013. Two twelve-month periods were compared. During the first one patients were tube fed with home-made diet without monitoring, while during the other the complex HEN was carried out. The latter included tube feeding and complex monitoring by nutrition support team. Number of complications, hospital admissions, length of hospital stay (LOS), biochemical and anthropometric parameters and costs of hospitalization were compared.
Interventions
DIETARY_SUPPLEMENTHEN
Patients with tube feeding with FSMP for at least twelve months
Sponsors
Stanley Dudrick's Memorial Hospital
Study design
Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* indications for home tube feeding (HTF), * complete present and past medical history, * tube feeding for at least twelve months before HEN and at least twelve months afterwards.
Exclusion criteria
* doubtful indications for HEN, no access or an incomplete medical record, * treatment period shorter than 12 months either before or after enrolment
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Number of complications | 24 moths |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Number of hospital admissions | 24 months |
Other
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| length of hospital stay | 24 months |
Countries
Poland
Outcome results
None listed