Abstract

Author(s): Gonçalves de Alencar, Mariana1; De Sá Leitão, Mayara Brasil2; Da Silva Prado, Leila Virgínia3

Introduction: Malnutrition is a frequent finding among hospitalized patients and permanent nutritional care is an integral part of good medical treatment.

Objective: To evaluate the evolution of nutritional status of patients admitted to the clinic of a philanthropic hospital in Pernambuco (PE).

Methods: This was a prospective study, patients admitted to the medical clinic of Integrative Medicine Institute Professor Fernando Figueira - IMIP, from April to October 2014. Patients were assessed on admission and at discharge through the following anthropometric measurements: weight, height, triceps skinfold (TSF) and arm circumference (AC). From the ratio of the weight by the square of height we calculated the body mass index (BMI); and the arm muscle circumference (MAMC) was calculated by pre-established formula, from the information of the TSF and AC. It was also collected the hospital stay, the number of episodes in which the patient was fasted, the main condition which led to hospitalization and weight variation during hospitalization. Data were analyzed in Sigma Stat 13.0. The 5% significance level to reject the null hypothesis was adopted.

Results: We evaluated 99 patients, adults and seniors. On admission, malnutrition was present in 21% of the sample, according to BMI. 59.59% of patients lost weight during hospitalization. Females were significantly associated with weight loss (p = 0.038) and was a significant negative correlation between BMI with the length of stay (r = - 0.296) and the number of episodes of fasting (r = - 0.245). The evolution of nutritional status according to BMI showed that at hospital discharge diagnosis of malnutrition increased by 4.03%.

Discussion: Although currently very discuss the increasing obesity as a result of nutritional transition, hospital malnutrition still deserves attention and prominence to be strongly associated with a higher prevalence of morbidity and mortality.

Conclusion: The findings show a negative correlation of nutritional status according to BMI, with the length of stay and the number of episodes fasting, in addition to the high prevalence of weight loss and virtually unchanged condition of malnutrition in patients during hospitalization.