Puréed diet: prevalence and reported reasons for use in a long-term care hospital.
Although puréed diets are thought to be widely used for patients in long-term care facilities, there is little specific information concerning prevalence and reasons for the actual use of this diet texture. At Saint-Vincent Hospital, a 516 bed, long-term care and rehabilitation facility, 25.9% of the chronic-care population (n = 424) were on a puréed diet. Those who received puréed diets tended to be older (83.5 years versus 75.4 years, P < 0.001) and were more likely to be female (82.7% versus 70.8% P < 0.006), than the total population of long-term care patients. A greater percentage of patients receiving a puréed diet had dementia (43.0% versus 30.6%, P < 0.02), and fewer had cerebrovascular accident as a primary diagnosis (22.6% versus 33.9%, P < 0.05), than the total population of long-term care patients at this hospital. Following data collection, reasons for patients being on a puréed diet were grouped into five categories. The most popular categories were "Physiological/Mechanical" and "Cognitive" problems.
Cormier
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D
Saint-Vincent Hospital, Ottawa, Ontario.
Harper
D W
DW
O'Hara
P A
PA
Brillant
C
C
Caissie
D
D
Dubeau
J
J
Mitalas
J
J
D000368:Aged; D004045:Dietary Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders; D005518:Food Preferences; D005521:Food Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006763:Hospitals, Chronic Disease; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care; D001523:Mental Disorders; D009864:Ontario; D017751:Safety Management