Abstract

Author(s): Jaíne Teixeira BEZERRA1, Nathaly Esperidião DE-MELO1, Patrícia Brazil Pereira COELHO2, Celina Dias DE-AZEVEDO2, Maria Izabel Siqueira DE-ANDRADE3, Janatar Stella Vasconcelos de Melo ME MPOMO2

Objective: Identify nutritional risk, associated factors and clinical outcomes in non-oncological surgical patients.

Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted using records available on patient charts. Data were collected from non-oncological surgical patients 20 years of age or older hospitalized at a university hospital in Alagoas, Brazil, between October and December 2019. The patients were classified regarding nutritional risk using the Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 tool. The exploratory variables were type, severity, and temporal classification of surgery, total hospital stay, postoperative hospital stay and clinical outcome. The level of statistical significance was set at 5% (p <0.05).

Results: One hundred thirteen patients were evaluated; 66.4% were women and mean age was 48.1±14.5 years. Nutritional risk was identified in 11.5% of the sample. Individuals without risk had a greater frequency of excess weight (64% versus 30.8%) (p <0.04). Older people had a greater frequency of nutritional risk compared to adults (61.54% versus 38.46%; p = 0.002). Patients with nutritional risk were submitted to major surgery more often (70%), followed by minor surgery (20%) and surgery of moderate severity (10%) (p = 0.007). The classification of risk determined a longer postoperative hospital stay, with an average of three additional days (p = 0.022). Death occurred in 15.4% of the individuals at nutritional risk (p = 0.035).

Conclusions: Nutritional risk was associated with body mass index, age, severity of surgery and postoperative hospital stay. Regarding clinical outcomes, death was more frequent among patients classified with nutritional risk.