The Reliable Nutritional Risk Screening Tools

Malnutrition, Child

* assess the subjective global validity and reliability of using The Pediatric Yorkhil Malnutrition Score (PYMs) and merits of using the Screening Tool for Risk on Nutritional status and Growth (STRONGkids) as a nutrition screening tool * correlate it with the severity of their nutritional derangements in comparison to the Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Pediatrics (STAMP)in hospitalized Egyptian children aged (2-5)years in Assiut University Children Hospital (AUCH).

Malnutrition is responsible for around 3.1 million child deaths annually in low and middle income countries,the malnutrition is involved in about 45% of under-five children deaths in numerous developing countries. Malnutrition is associated with negative outcomes for inpatients, including increased risks of infections , increased muscle loss , impaired wound healing, longer hospital stay and increased morbidity and mortality . Malnutrition may be responsible for delayed recovery and need for intensive nursing care, thus increasing the cost of hospitalization . Nutritional support for inpatients has made progress and it is provided systematically through multidisciplinary nutritional support teams (NSTs) in most hospitals. The first step to run and manage the NST effectively and efficiently in each hospital may be proper screening and selection of the patients who are at risk of malnutrition requiring nutritional support during hospitalization Routine nutritional screening is rarely carried out in pediatric patients because of the lack of a simple and properly validated nutritional screening tool. The current practice of identifying children at risk of malnutrition is reliant on interpretation of anthropometric data and clinical judgement; the reliability of which is dependent on nutritional knowledge of pediatricians . Severe cases of malnutrition are easily recognized; however, the identification of children with lesser degrees of malnutrition or at risk of malnutrition, which is also important, is not as easily achieved.

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