title: Visual estimation of patients' body weight in hospital: the more observers, the better?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Patients are not always weighed in hospitals. A visual estimate of patients' body weight is often used. Little information exists about the validity of this practice. We assessed the visual estimation of body weight in a population of elderly hospitalised patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three observers performed a visual estimation of weight in 71 geriatric patients. Estimated body weights from each observer were compared to measured body weights. Various panels--three panels of two observers and two panels of three observers--were also evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall results showed that a three observer panel gave better weight estimates than one or two individuals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While further clinical studies are necessary to confirm these findings, using the mean or the median of several visual estimates may be a practical solution for body weight estimation when weighing patients is not possible.
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, Hôpital Antoine Charial, ADCAPT - Service Pharmaceutique, 40 Avenue de la Table de Pierre, 69340, Francheville, France. sylvain.goutelle@chu-lyon.fr.|Université Lyon 1, Lyon, 69003, France. sylvain.goutelle@chu-lyon.fr.|Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, UMR CNRS 5558, Bat G. Mendel, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France. sylvain.goutelle@chu-lyon.fr.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goutelle
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, Hôpital Antoine Charial, ADCAPT - Service Pharmaceutique, 40 Avenue de la Table de Pierre, 69340, Francheville, France.|Université Lyon 1, Lyon, 69003, France.|Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, UMR CNRS 5558, Bat G. Mendel, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bourguignon
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, Hôpital Antoine Charial, ADCAPT - Service Pharmaceutique, 40 Avenue de la Table de Pierre, 69340, Francheville, France.|National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals - NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Square, London, WC1N3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bertrand-Passeron
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Applied Pharmacokinetics, Keck School of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Roger W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Jelliffe
authors.affiliation: Hospices Civils de Lyon, Hôpital Antoine Charial, ADCAPT - Service Pharmaceutique, 40 Avenue de la Table de Pierre, 69340, Francheville, France.|Université Lyon 1, Lyon, 69003, France.|Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, UMR CNRS 5558, Bat G. Mendel, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maire
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001835:Body Weight; D001837:Body Weights and Measures / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015588:Observer Variation; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012015:Reference Standards; D014785:Vision, Ocular