Abstract

Author(s): Salvador-Monferrer, Lorena1; Fernández-Olea, María Sol1,2; Murillo-Sanchis, Jesús1,2

Multiple studies show the attention that is given to nutritional status in the history and clinical practice. In addition, most of the inpatients depend on hospital food to meet their nutritional requirements. It is important to assess the factors that influence this consumption.

A literature search was conducted. Original articles and reviews were selected through the combination of several descriptors (hospital malnutrition, malnutrition, nutritional screening, nutritional status, malnutrition, prevalence, waste of food, catering, patient satisfaction) in Pubmed, EBSCOhost, Science Direct, Scielo, Schoolar Google and ProQuest.

Prospective collection of studies and reviews results on prevalence of hospital malnutrition (from 1974 to 2013) indicate values from 7% to 87.5% in reviews and from 2.8 to 86.6% in studies. In conclusion, the 117 studies gathered in this work are not always comparable, due to large differences in geographical variability, age group studied, sample size, type of hospital service and type of pathology, as well as methods used to carry out the nutritional assessment and diagnostic criteria used to define malnutrition.

On hospitalized patients’ food waste, the average value is approximately 40% and the main reasons are due to clinical, food and diet, service and environmental factors.