title: Undernutrition risk screening and length of stay of hospitalized elderly.
abstract: The purpose was to compare, in elderly hospitalized patients, the performance of widely used nutritional screening and assessment tools and anthropometric parameters with the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS-2002); and to evaluate their independent association with length of hospital stay. Nutritional-status screening and assessment was carried out using NRS-2002, Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST), and anthropometry. Patients classified by NRS-2002 as undernourished had an independent higher risk of longer length-of-stay (> 8 days): Odds ratio = 2.25 (95% Confidence Interval = 1.03 to 4.88). Nutritional "risk" by NRS-2002 is an independent risk factor for a long length of stay in elderly hospitalized patients, an important outcome predictor in this population.
authors.affiliation: University of Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Cátia Patrícia Alho Letra
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.forename: Joana Rita
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Correia
authors.forename: Teresa Freitas
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: do Amaral
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000886:Anthropometry; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D009752:Nutritional Status; D018570:Risk Assessment